The Stars
by Fever Dream
Summary: In this sequel to "Sun and Moon" and "New Order", the Exile, Shira Casema, searches the Unknown Regions for Revan. Having discovered Shira's force bonding manipulation, Atton Rand pursues her, unsure if he wants to renew their love or to seek vengeance.
1. Shadow Valley

_There is no death, there is the Force._

White cliffs loomed on either side of the valley like jagged teeth. Shira glanced up at the dark silhouettes hovering high above the crags, circling the marsh, waiting. It was strange to see birds of prey in a place so barren. She wondered what they ate.

Every couple of steps, her boots would get stuck in the mud. As she pulled her feet out, it made a loud slurping sound that reminded her of a Hutt sucking down his supper.

Trust Revan to stop in all the most scenic spots, Shira thought. She shivered and pulled her loose jacket more tightly around her body. There was no doubt in her mind that he had been here. She looked for his footprints in the mud.

Only one species of vegetation grew on the planet but it thrived. The tangled vines crept out of the marsh, climbing over one another, fighting for the few pale beams of light that penetrated the thick clouds. In her curiosity, Shira crouched down and pulled up one of the plants.

The root shrieked in her hands.

She dropped it, starting back in horror. It looked like a bleeding heart.

The scream echoed over the blanched faces of the cliffs and then there was silence, broken only by the mud slurping at her boots.

Further out in the marsh, she glimpsed the outline of a still, dark figure wreathed in mist.

"Revan!" she cried.

The echo of the cliffs called back to her.

"Revan!"

There was no answer.

She wondered if it was only a trick of the mind. In her solitary travels, tree stumps and boulders had been known to briefly assume the shapes of old friends.

She peered through the fog. It was not a rock or a blasted tree. She was certain of it. Squinting, she could just make out the contour of broad shoulders and the rounded shape of a head turned away from her.

Her hands clutched at her lightsaber. The beam unfurled before her, casting violet tints upon the foggy air.

"Who are you? Answer me!"

The figure slowly spun around and stepped towards her, parting the mist a single of swipe of large hands.

She gasped and reeled backwards, the lightsaber held out before her. "Stay back!"

"I know it's a shock, General. If it makes you feel any better, it came as a surprise to me, too."

Shira gaped at the face of Bao-Dur. "You died. We buried you."

"But you forget: 'There is no death, there is the Force'. Part of me is buried back under that tree on Telos, but part of me is here. With you."

She wondered if she had finally completed her descent into madness. Seeing objects as people was one thing, but inventing conversations with figments of her imagination was a whole other level of insanity. Still, it wouldn't hurt to answer. After all, she'd seen and done a lot of crazy things in her time.

"Why? Why are you here? How are you here?"

"I can't really say. There is a field of energy on this planet that allows me to appear, General, but you're the one who summoned me. So I should be asking you - why am I here?"

She looked down at the place where his mechanical arm used to glow. It wasn't there. His left arm was whole.

"It's going to take me a minute to get this straight in my head."

Bao-Dur smiled. "Have you ever been to the glass rooms in Ahto City? The ones where you can see the ocean and all the firaxan sharks swimming around?"

"What? No," she said. "Why?"

"Well, this place is like that, I think. You're on one side of the glass and I'm on the other. I can see into your world and you can see into mine, but we're in different places."

"So which of us is the firaxan shark?"

He chuckled. "I don't know, General. I tend to think it's you."

"You're probably right," she sighed.

Her throat was closing up and she had to struggle to push the words out. "I'm sorry, Bao, that things turned out…the way they did. I miss you. I shouldn't have brought you back there, to that place -"

He raised his hand as though to hush her. "I went back to Malachor because I wanted to, because I needed to. We all have to make our peace sometime. I hope you don't mind me saying this, but I get the idea that you haven't come to that yet."

She looked down at the mud on her boots. "No, I haven't. You're right."

"To be honest, I knew it was coming," Bao-Dur said. "I just didn't know when or how. I was never very good at meditating, but one day I tried it and I just got a feeling that I was going to have to hurry up and get all my work done in the garage."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

The Zabrak turned his head, gazing up at the chalky cliffs and the grim shapes of predatory birds suspended in the sky. "What were you going to do? Everybody has a clock ticking inside them, General. Even you."

Shira observed her old friend as he surveyed the stark landscape with the same mix of wonder and scientific interest that had always distinguished him as a brilliant tech. She knew he was trying to understand the eco-system of the nightmarish place, trying to disassemble it into a series of biological mechanisms.

"Strange place, isn't it?" he murmured.

Shira hesitated before she spoke. "Bao, I've never been able to say this to you. I never had the courage before and then I never had the chance. What I'm going to say - it's a lot to ask."

"Go ahead already. I'm listening."

"When I nodded at you that day, when I looked at you and gave the order, I broke you. I did it and at the time, I didn't even think of you. All I thought about was that battlefield and the directive from command. I'm sorry."

For a moment, Bao-Dur's powerful jaw seemed to grind at something tough, as though he had to chew his words before he spoke them.

"I forgave you for it a long time ago. I thought you knew that. It disappoints me that you even have to ask. Besides, in the end, I pushed the button, General. I could have ignored the orders. I could have destroyed the machine. I made my choice."

She felt as though there should be tears in her eyes, but she blinked and they were dry. When she spoke, her voice had a hollow metallic ring.

"That's what I need to tell you. With me, Bao, a lot of people don't get to choose.

You see, I'm not a great Jedi and I'm a terrible teacher, but I've always been what people call 'special'. I have a very rare gift. The kind that never stops giving to me and taking from you."

For a moment, Shira paused, looked into his unwavering eyes, and then she spit the words out at him.  
"I latch on to everyone around me, Bao, people like you who think we're friends, and I bleed them dry. Do you remember what Malachor looked like when I was done with it? That's what I can do to people when I hold on to them tight enough. After enough time with me, they won't even know themselves anymore."

He paused before he responded in the same ponderous way he always had, measuring his answers out with the slow precision he gave to all his work.

"I think you're wrong. I don't believe that. I won't. I told you that you had an effect on me that one time, but I just meant that seeing you again made me feel better."

"And maybe that was a lie, Bao. Maybe that was the best trick I ever played. I love it when people love me. It feeds me but I'm always hungry," she said. "If you want to know, that's why I'm out here in this wasteland, searching for a man I never wanted to see again. Freaks flock together, right?"

Bao-Dur frowned. "If you want it to be that way, General, then there's nothing I can say to change your mind. I accept your apology. None of it matters anymore." He began to turn away, retreating back into the fog.

"I'm sorry," she croaked. "I'm sorry! I wanted to stop it. I wanted to pretend that it wasn't happening, but part of me always knew, Bao. I hurt you and I lied to you and I'm sorry."

His body was almost completely shrouded by the mist, but she could still make out his voice. "I forgive you. I healed my wounds. Now go and fix yourself, General. Do it before it's too late."

And then he was gone.

Shira felt her boots sinking into the mud, but this time she just stood still and let them slip in deep. She wrinkled her nose. The swamp water stank like rot. As she stood there, rooted to the spot, the cold air sank in and chilled her bones. She imagined that her body was made of tiny icicles. When she moved, she was sure they would snap.

It was the dampness seeping into her thick-soled boots that got her moving again. She turned to look back at the way she came but instead of the Hawk outlined in the hazy distance, she saw two staring white eyes.

She almost leapt out of her skin.

Kreia gave a gleeful cackle. "Ah, at last you come. A pleasant surprise, even if it is behind schedule. Our Revan is waiting, you know. "

Shira caught her breath and tried to suppress the urge to scowl at her former Master. "Was it really necessary to scare me senseless?"

"The dead are allowed a sense of humor. I suppose you've tired of your fool?"

"That isn't up for discussion, Kreia," Shira snapped.

She instantly felt a twinge of regret. After all, the old woman had been her guide. In her twisted way, Kreia had loved her like a mother. And at the end, she had stood in place of Shira's real mother, the one she couldn't remember but couldn't quite forget. It was through the teachings of this dried-up old woman that she had experienced her agonizing second birth.

"I'm glad to see you," she said. "I wondered where you had gone, if you would even choose to let yourself exist in the Force when your body had gone."

"Yes, it is good to meet again, broken one," Kreia answered. "The Force and I have come to a sort of…understanding, I suppose. We tolerate one another as I imagine old married people do after many years of squabbling. Do you like our little valley?"

"No, I don't. Not at all. Do you know where Revan is now?"

Kreia lowered her head so that the hood obscured her empty eyes. "Sadly, I do not. He visited this place many days ago, but he didn't have the courtesy to call on me. Ingratitude always was chief among his flaws."

"I want to know what happened, Kreia. How did our bond break?"

"It is not severed, Exile. My love is there still, like a splinter under your skin. It pains you even now but it could not kill you. It was not as Atris surmised."

"How can I let it go? How can I be free? Tell me!"

Her hand shot out to grasp Kreia's robe, but it passed right through the old woman.

Kreia's thin lips curved into a smile. "I do not have an answer to that puzzle. It is not I who will put the pieces into place. But there is something else that I wish to say to you."

Shira felt her patience fraying. "What is it?"

"The act of prophecy is a game, broken one. I told you a few tales of the future once, but there are many things I left unsaid," the old woman replied. "You will see them in time and when the time is right, you will understand why I could not speak. You must now venture onto a path you cannot see and you must trust it. The True Sith are not what you suspect. You will go blind into the darkness. It is what it must be."

"I don't understand. Kreia, please just give me an idea what I should be looking for. There has to be something -"

"Do not try to bargain with me! What can the living offer the dead?"

Kreia's parched skin became a fine powder, disintegrating before Shira's eyes. Her smiling lips peeled away, baring square little teeth, rotted gums and a wide expanse of gleaming bone.

"I am made only of dreams and dust," the death's-head laughed.

Wind gusted through the valley and blew the bones into ash. The grinning teeth chattered together and dropped to the ground like rotten fruit.

Shira stood alone.

Thanks, Kreia, she thought. You're just like a mother, alright. Just like the old Gamorrean sow who eats her nine farrow.

She trudged back towards the ship, hoping to avoid any other wandering ghosts who might wish to renew an acquaintance. She didn't want to see any of the soldiers again. In her mind, the phantoms were already arrayed before her: the recruits so proud in their uniforms, wearing the invincibility of their youth, and the grizzled veterans whose lips curled into sarcastic smiles when she passed, all too ready to condescend to a Jedi girl playing war. There were men and women, so many of them, too many to count except in rank-and-file, and she had betrayed them all, as surely as if she'd choked the life of them, one by one, with her own two hands.

She was aware that the bottom of her robe was trailing through the sludge, but what did it matter? She was going back to an empty ship. T3 didn't care whether dirt clung to the hem of her skirt.

Shira had nearly reached the ship when she spotted something shining amidst a tangle of vines. She reached down into the mess and plucked out a viridian crystal. The gem emanated a silvery-green glow in her hand. From her first days at the Enclave, she had been taught to respect it as a sign of honor among Jedi. Even the Sith revered it.

It was undoubtedly Revan's doing. It was he who had left it there. Was it his calling card or an offering for the dead?

She was tempted to take it. It was rare, and the smug schutta had no business leaving something so precious in the mud. She was about to slip it under the lapel of her robe when she caught a glimpse of Tahet standing only a few steps away from her.

"Master!" Shira cried.

But how…? It took a moment for the ugly truth to dawn on her. She had always assumed that the woman who had been her Master had simply walked away from the Order as so many of the others had done. She had imagined Tahet living a normal life somewhere, having tucked her lightsaber carefully away in a drawer. She had not ranked her counselor, her mentor, her friend, among the ghosts haunting this dank pit of a planet.

Tahet did not say a word. She simply shook her head in admonishment. The golden hair that Shira had admired so much as child fell lightly around her teacher's kind, weary face. There were strange marks on her neck, dark purple like a tattoo.

"What happened to you? Tahet? Master?"

Tahet raised a finger to her lips as though to quiet her. Her face was very calm, very grave. All there was, all there ever could be, was silence.

Shira lay the viridian crystal back down amid the brambles. She wanted her teacher to see that she still knew the old ways, even if they had lost power over the way she lived. She wanted another one of the smiles she had once practiced for hours to earn.

She wanted to say and do so many things, but when she looked up again, Tahet had vanished into the mist.

Revan was taking a stroll in the countryside. Stalks of chitle'wost lined either side of the dirt road leading to Aartdil, tall orange spires stabbing against an afternoon sky. The horizon was dotted with the dark outlines of distant farm houses.

It reminded him of Deralia. Or at least the memories of Deralia the Council had so thoughtfully bestowed upon him. He rather liked the picturesque rural scenes that occasionally played through his mind like so many souvenir holo-images sold on tourist planets.

Someone in the Order must have had a sense of humour, he thought. There was something richly comic, delightfully incongruous, in brainwashing a former Dark Lord to believe he'd spent his formative years as a country bumpkin, attending family picnics and shoveling bantha fodder. It should have made him angry and it often it did, but at other times, it was almost amusing to think he had the benefit of two lives instead of one.

Under normal circumstances, he wouldn't have stepped foot on Farschi. The Chiss colony was just a patchwork of farm tracts interspersed with trade villages. Even if he could gather enough soldiers to form an effective and loyal militia here, he doubted the True Sith would bother with such a backwater.

If it was conquest the Sith wanted, he conjectured that they'd launch surprise attacks at Csilla and the supply lines on Thrago first, wiping out the Ascendancy's ruling families and crippling its economy. From that position, it would be easy to quash any incidental rebellions in the colonies. Or in any case, that was the way he would have done it.

He'd come to Farschi for information. Astraroth Kan, the colonial representative for House Csapla, had sent him a message three days ago through the military academy on Rhigar. Kan claimed to have discovered evidence of Sith incursions into the sector. It was a long shot, but it was obvious that something had terrified the settlers. Time spent observing the Chiss bureaucracy had taught him that they didn't condescend to talk to outsider "aliens" unless they were scared out of their wits by something even more foreign and threatening.

There was a rustling noise in the bushes. He glanced to his left and saw something large and blue sprawled on the ground. It looked ominously like a corpse.

He was about to inspect it when a blaster shot zinged past his ear.

Revan unsheathed his lightsaber and deflected the barrage of bolts. The shooters were hiding in the crops.

He plunged into the field, mowing a path through the stalks of chitle'wost. His blade made a very effective scythe.

A few meters away, the stalks rattled together again.

"Die, Sith! Die!" a voice shrieked.

The blaster fire was heavy but erratic, scorching the tips of the plants. Revan barely had to deflect the onslaught with his beam but he knew that someone was not going be happy come harvest time this year.

He parted the crops with his hand and kept plowing through.

"Retreat!" someone shouted.

There was more rustling. He glimpsed a flash of blue skin, at least three scrawny bodies fleeing through the tall stalks.

Children at play.

He didn't know much about Chiss parenting, but he'd always assumed that blasters weren't standard toys for the kids. It was something he'd have to mention to Kan later.

He made his way back to the dirt road. The blue heap lay in the dust, completely motionless. It had thin limbs and a paunchy torso. It looked Chiss and male. The back of the head was covered in a mop of dark hair.

Revan rolled it over with his boot. He almost laughed at the black stitches in the blue face, the stuffing bursting out of the coarse fabric of the 'stomach'. It was just a manikin, a decoy set up scare off the birds.

So much for that little adventure, he thought, bending over to prop the manikin back up on its stake again. It was the least he could do after the damage he'd caused to the crops.

When he reached the village of Aartdil, Revan couldn't help but notice that the streets were almost entirely deserted. The market stalls had been abandoned in haste. None of the tradespeople had bothered to pack up their wares and vegetables, rolls of coarse fabric and machine parts had tumbled onto the ground, lying in the thick dust.

Turning down the main road towards the town square, he saw a woman fumbling with the data-lock to her house. Revan was just about to greet her in Cheun when someone else opened the door and pulled her in. The door slammed shut.

As he walked towards the imperial administration center, he could feel eyes trained on him from within the small, darkened houses that lined the streets. Once in a while, he'd glimpse a silhouette framed by a window, then quick movement as the watcher caught him staring back.

The Chiss weren't a friendly people under normal circumstances, but this was far worse than Revan's usual experiences. Generally a welcoming committee would arrive to guide him to the Foreign Quarter, the only place non-Chiss were allowed to rest and obtain food. These weren't expressions of friendliness so much as pre-emptive strikes, designed to ensure he didn't poke his nose in anywhere it didn't belong, but at least before, people had been willing to say hello. Whatever it was, he felt sure that something had the townspeople spooked.

The administration building was a stark white structure as austere as the Chiss themselves. Its sole embellishment was the wide yellow banner of House Csalpa, which was draped just above the double doors. Or it had been the only ornamentation until recently. One of the locals had decided to decorate the building further. On the right hand corner of the office building, someone had executed a lurid portrait of a gaunt-faced man with two crossed-out eyes. The epigraph beneath it read, "Collaborator Csalpa".

Revan walked up the steps and into the building, with the feeling he was stepping into a political minefield. That was nothing so new, but it had been a hell of a lot easier to handle in Republic space, where he knew the history and the culture, where he was comfortable with the essential languages.

Kan's valet greeted him at the door. Revan observed him cautiously, making a diplomatic effort to conceal his curiosity at the servant's appearance. Nobles from the Chiss dynastic houses kept cyborg servants instead of droids as a mark of status and Revan always found it intriguing to examine their various modifications. This one had a scanner implanted in his right eye, a pair of mechanical arms that undoubtedly doubled as weapons and what appeared to be a state-of-the-art holo-vid projector lodged in his back.

The valet spoke very slowly in Cheun, obviously well-aware that he was talking to an outsider, and thus, a primitive and an idiot.

"[Syndic Kan… will be… very pleased. He has… heard of your quest… and he believes… you may be interested… in the recent situation here on Farschi.]"

"[Take me to him.]"

Revan had always taken to languages easily and he understood spoken Cheun very well now, but proper pronunciation was almost impossible if one's pallet was shaped normally. Trying to converse in the language was a continual embarrassment for him. If he ever got a chance to describe this place to Bastila, he figured he'd compare speaking Cheun to hocking back spit. Not that Princess Bastie would have any idea what that felt like.

The valet led him down a short corridor to a small, dark-paneled office.

Syndic Kan's red eyes glimmered from behind a broad desk. He was just past middle-age and like all Chiss, lean to the point of gauntness, but the skin on his ashy blue face had begun to sag into jowls. The heavy bags under his eyes gave him a look of perpetual weariness.

Kan spoke in perfectly enunciated Cheun, a stark and shameful contrast to the way Revan hacked at the words, butchering the language.

"[Greetings, Sith Hunter Revan. Is that the proper former of address for your people? Please sit down]"

Sith Hunter. The Chiss didn't have a word for 'Jedi', only for Sith, and so this had become Revan's new nickname. He rather liked it.

He moved a little closer, but continued to stand, his arms crossed over his chest. "[That will be fine. I prefer to stand.]"

"[Very well. I will not use much of your time. Perhaps you noticed the graffiti outside the office?]"

Revan felt a twinge of annoyance. Why did people tell you they wouldn't waste your time and then proceed to ask stupid questions? Of course he'd seen it. He still had eyes in his head.

"[I have. I also noticed the children shooting blasters at me and the empty streets. I assume this isn't business as usual. What's happened here?]"

Kan frowned, deep creases growing around the sides of his mouth.

"[The Sith have happened here]," he sighed. "[You must excuse my people. The recent attacks have made them suspicious and inhospitable to strangers, particularly those who wear unfamiliar costumes such as yours. I issued a bulletin to warn them of your visit, but I fear they have lost much trust in authority and begin to forget even their House allegiance.]"

Revan eyed Kan's high-collared jacket. The yellow ribbon of a true-born Csalpa was pinned to his chest, yet he was only an imperial bureaucrat on some far-flung farm planet. He must be an aristocratic plodder, Revan thought, just clutching on to his House status with everything he has left. Sad, really.

"[Tell me about these attacks.]"

"[The first one was reported five moon-changes ago. Three house-groups farming on the outskirts of village Te'sola disappeared. It was concerning, but settlers come and go all the time, and our investigators did not find any bodies nor were there any signs of violence. Then more people started to disappear. The colony has become unmanageable. There are whispers about Sith. I have never seen such creatures, but the people, they believe in them.]"

"[Alright. When did the last attack happen?]"

The sides of Kan's mouth twitched and his posture became ever more rigid. He obviously resented having to take orders from an off-worlder without rank or class, but at least he was trying to hide it.

"[Nowadays, it is difficult to know. Incidents are not being reported as they should be. Settlers have started to pack up and flee for other colonies. The last attack I heard of occurred ten days ago on the road between here and Hanyune.]"

"[Any witnesses?]"

"[There is one. A commoner child. Not reliable, I think. She may not have even been there.]"

Revan wondered if haughty old Kan had even bothered to get someone to interview her. It could just be a child's nightmare, fear playing on an overactive imagination, but he'd learned from experience that kids could be pretty tough, pretty useful, when it came right down to it. He thought of Mission. Funny kid. She was probably all grown-up now.

"[Get me the girl's name and house-grouping number anyway and as much information as you can about these attacks]" he said. "[Frequency, locations, anything you or your servant can dig up. We're looking for patterns.]"

Kan arched a thick black eyebrow. "[I assume this means you plan to undertake an investigation?]"

"[I'm a Sith hunter, aren't I? Let's see if we can catch a few.]"


	2. Hunger Pangs

Farschi's sun glowed like a dying ember. In the east, the darkness was rising.

Revan crouched in the shadow of a decrepit toolshed, observing the four hooded figures approaching across the fields. At a gesture, waves of grass separated on either side of the figures as though they were parting a golden sea. They formed a black line moving steadily towards House Grouping Csalpa Far38. Revan fidgeted with his stealth field generator and slowly his coiled rope of a body merged into the long shadows of the dusk.

He pulled the pin of the CryoBan grenade clutched in his fist, drew his arm back and lobbed it at the center of the group. The grenade traced a low arc in the air and hit the ground beside the third Sith. Crystals of glowing blue ice blossomed around the dark figure, but his companions managed to dodge it.

Revan aimed his blaster at the ensnared Sith's head. He fired two shots. A spray of gore spattered the ice, but the headless body didn't fall. It was still frozen in place.

The others charged towards the toolshed, black lightsabers unfurled, kath hounds baying for blood. Checking his stealth field generator, Revan held his breath and willed his heart to slow. He crawled a few meters away from his original position and lay flat to the ground, breathing in the bristling grass and the damp earth. He awaited his next opportunity.

Shira bit at the insides of her cheeks and stared down at the tube of preserved food in front of her. According to the label, the paste tasted just like dricklefruit but contained added essential nutrients and would last longer than twenty Supreme Chancellors. She had read this same label enough times to be able to recite the ingredients list in perfect order.

She wound her silver necklace around her throat, enjoying the embrace of the cold metal chain on her skin. There was a worn spot on the silver coating, the place where the dog-tags had once been. She'd never seen them or read the inscriptions. Atton had thrown them away years ago and just kept the chain. And then one day, he'd given it to her, just pressed it into her hands without a word of explanation. It was the only gift she'd ever received from him. It wasn't krayt pearls and emeralds, but it was the most appropriate present she could imagine under the circumstances. He would never know just how appropriate it was.

She stopped playing with the chain and let it drop back to her chest. If she kept on toying with it, she was going to break it and it was her only souvenir.

Her stomach gave a plaintive whimper. Hunger was becoming her closest companion, her favorite confidante. Her robes were becoming loose and her skin was drawn tightly over her bones. She wasn't thinking clearly.

Fine, she thought, I'll eat it. Have to keep healthy. Have to keep sane.

Reluctantly she unscrewed the cap, squeezed out a mouthful of its contents and took a tentative nibble. The taste was sickly sweet and the texture was gummy, containing little flecks of seeds. She chewed it dutifully and then took another wincing bite for T3's benefit.

"Beemip meet?" T3 said.

Although he was plugged into the navigation console, he kept his head screwed on backwards to supervise her attempts at meals, at awkward dinner-time conversations, at solitary games of pazaak.

"Bip-bip-beeeep?"

Her words came in a jumble, tripping helter-skelter one over the other. "I'm re-fueling, you see? T3, I am. Force, this place is starting to make me go - oh, what's the word he used to use? - 'stir-crazy'. Good word, right? Good word. I'm going stir-crazy."

Shira pushed more blue paste out of the tube, regarding the food with nothing more than a scientific interest. She poked at it and it wobbled slightly.

T3's lights flashed. "Dwoo!"

She took angry bite of the paste and chewed it resentfully. "Happy? This stuff is making my teeth go blue. Eating this swill is enough to make anyone go bonkers. "

Her scowl vanished and her voice turned pleading. "T3, let's dock somewhere. Or better yet, let's land." She waved her arm at the dark void surrounding the ship. "We could use a break from all this damn space."

The Sith trooper stood a few paces away from Revan's concealed form, sniffing the air with flared, red-rimmed nostrils. A smile teetered on the edges of decayed lips and glistened on the tips of jagged teeth. Brandishing a black lightsaber, he opened his mouth to call to his companions but all that came out was a burble of dark blood.

Revan withdrew his saber from the Sith's neck. His body materialized and the hounds were back on his scent.

He sprinted away, the Force and his pursuers pressing behind him. The small one was quick and nimble and the large one was faster than he had thought. They were gaining. He leapt high into the air, covering ground. Lure them as far away from the farmhouse as possible, separate them and dispose of each threat – that was the plan. His right foot touched ground but his left foot slipped in the mud and he fell back into murky water.

An irrigation ditch. A deep one.

The water sloshed around him as he struggled to gain footing in the treacherous sludge. He could hear the small one cackling in the darkness.

Revan disappeared under the dark water of the ditch, controlling his breath. If they wanted him, they would have come into the stew. His bloated corpse wasn't going to bob up to the surface any time soon. Accidents can become advantages. Or at least that's what he always tried to reassure himself. He crept under the filthy water towards the far edge of the ditch. If he was quiet and lucky, he might be able to give them a little surprise.

He waited and listened as the Sith poked at the water, snarling at one another in their strange language. And then silence. He raised his eyes slightly above water level. A black saber slashed at his head, searing his scalp. He ducked under again and the cool water was a relief. Through the filthy water, he could see the small one leering down at him. The black lightsaber hung overhead, ready to spear his body or chop at his head the second he dared to emerge. Blood streamed from fresh gash marks scraped out of the Sith's grey cheeks.

The still water rippled. The small Sith swiped again, but this time Revan had caught the hand wielding the saber. The creature writhed under his grasp, baring blood-stained teeth. Revan drove his dagger into the Sith's abdomen, tearing through the thick robe into sickly, yielding flesh. The Sith made a terrible sound, part shriek, part giggle. He lunged at the Jedi's throat, his teeth aimed at the jugular. Their sharp points scraped over Revan's skin, but he was busy twisting the dagger into the Sith's guts. The insides of the monster's belly spilled into the ditch. Slowly, cautiously, Revan climbed out of the putrid water. The large Sith was gone. Revan knew where. Three down, one to go.

Shira walked over the cracked earth of an unknown moon, still nibbling grudgingly at the repugnant blue paste. She stretched her legs and breathed the heavy air of high gravity, relishing the solidity of everything around her. In the distance, clusters of conical mounds rose from the ground. One of them alone would have been ugly, but en masse, they were almost majestic, like turrets on ancient tower. She walked towards them, her hand poised on her lightsaber just in case. No matter what T3 thought, she hadn't lost it entirely. She wasn't going to go stark staring mad out in darkest reaches of unknown space. Hell, she could have stayed at home and done that.

A clicking noise came from between two mounds. It sounded twice and then she heard feet scurrying over dry ground. Shira withdrew her lightsaber from her belt.

Long antennae twitched over a thorax curved into a diabolical knot. Beady red eyes cut her image into fragments. A humongous insect. A big brown bug. It looked like a kinrath, but less ugly and seemingly…sentient.

It stood a few meters away, its antennae moving slowly as though relaying information. The creature's twiggy arms flailed in the air. It generated a clicking sound from somewhere within the depths of its serrated throat and this time, somehow, she could understand the thoughts if not the words.

_Hello, Traveller. Hello, Friend. Hello, Joiner._

She eased her lightsaber back into its holster and all at once it hit her. They were friends. How could she forget such a friendship as this? The air smelled wonderful, as pleasant and homey as the scent of fresh-baked bread wafting from an oven. She felt safe, so very secure and comfortable. The tube of blue paste slipped from her hand and fell onto the dusty ground. She would not need it anymore. Her new friend and all his friends would ensure that she would never hunger again.

The insect skittered away and she followed him. Its antennae moved like curled fingers gesturing her forward, drawing her along the path. He crept into a dark hole at the side of one of the mounds and she plunged in after him.

Inside, there was only beauty. Sparkling white larvae hung from the cave's ceiling like crystal chandeliers. The cave was pleasant and cool and yet the elegant, attenuated forms of her new friends crushed all around her, wending paths through the darkness. Their antennae brushed gently over her face, tickled her neck and traced over the bare skin of her wrists and ankles. They welcomed her home with low melodies, the gentle rhythms of their clicking weaving together into one perfect voice.

_Home,_ the voice said. _You have come home. Hello, Traveller. Hello, Friend. Hello, Joiner. You are Us. _

She cried for joy. Her tears fell softly upon the cracked earth. It was the Force. No, it was better than the Force. At last, at last, she had come home.

Revan crept through the corridors of the homestead, peering into each open doorway. His stealth field generator was functioning again but the floors were covered with panels of thin reeds that seemed ready to announce his presence at every step. The place was deathly quiet. There were no Sith in sight, but disturbingly there were no Chiss householders either.

Someone's dinner was getting cold on the kitchen table. A cup lay overturned on the floor amidst a puddle of green liquid.

The door ahead of him was slightly ajar but the crack was not wide enough for Revan to see inside unless he pushed it open and alerted onlookers to his position. He hesitated and leaned forward, listening, straining to detect sounds of breathing or quiet shifting in the shadows, but the room was silent.

He armed himself with his lightsaber, activated his energy shield and sucked in a deep breath. There was no use in being subtle now. He kicked open the door.

A black lightsaber stabbed at his chest but the shield repelled the beam. Revan sprang to the side, ready to parry the next attempt. He could already feel his shield weakening around him.

"[I've been waiting for you,]" the Sith leader said in Cheun. His tongue darted out and licked a red fleck from the side of his putty-coloured lips. "[They've been waiting too.]" He gestured to the Chiss homesteaders locked in stasis behind him with an expression akin to glee. "[It was suppertime.]"

The smell of blood was thick in the air. The Sith grinned at him and between the needle-like teeth, Revan saw strings of white gristle and glistening saliva still tinged with red.

"[I slaughtered your friends. They didn't present much difficulty]" Revan said, leveling a blow at the monster's stomach.

The creature parried and aimed a flurry of blows against the energy shield. "[Good. Saves me the trouble of having to do it myself]"

Revan hurled a Force Wave at the Sith that sent his hulking frame toppling backwards onto the floor, but before he could skewer the monster with his 'saber, he felt a terrible blast of heat scorching underneath his skin. He gasped, feeling his arms quiver. He could hear his flesh crackling in the blaze. It took all of his strength and all of his will to maintain his grip upon the lightsaber.

The Sith leapt to his feet, striking at Revan's neck. Without the benefit of an energy shield, Revan knew he would have been singing blood out of an open throat. What was more disturbing was the knowledge his energy shield's power was giving out.

Revan threw a bolt of lightning at the Sith and this time the power hit his opponent full force. The creature's red maw shot open as the volts surged through his body. At that moment, Revan plunged his beam into the Sith's side and cut a broad swathe of black uniform and grey flesh.

The Sith slashed at him again but this time, it was a desperate strike, poorly aimed and poorly defended. Revan cut into the creature's back, shearing away more dark fabric and more burned flesh.

"[You will die,]" the Sith snarled.

"[Yes, one day I will,]" Revan answered. "[But you're going first.]"

He drove his lightsaber into the monster's right shoulder. The blade slid diagonally through the Sith's chest down to his left hip, slicing him in neat, almost triangular halves. The end result reminded Revan of the way Deralian mothers cut sandwiches. The two pieces of ugly Sith writhed for a moment like something caught on a hook. The needle-toothed mouth gnashed and sputtered and then the yellow eyes stared up at the ceiling, the fishy eyes of a corpse.

Revan went to see to the survivors.

Shira slept on the cool floor of the cave, the insects skittering around her in the darkness. Overhead the larvae squirmed in their crystalline sacs, struggling to free themselves from a cold, dreamless slumber. While the first writhed out of their bonds and devoured the sticky shells that once imprisoned them, Shira had a strange dream.

_She stood in the dusty heat of the Enclave's training room in her eleven-year-old body, watching Master Kavar and Master Tahet fight in the ring. The other younglings were clustered around her. They squirmed with excitement at the afternoon's spectacle, feeling the slow puff of one another's breath in the thick air, inhaling the spicy tang of sweat and moist skin. Roheim elbowed her side and grinned, pointing at Master Vandar, who appeared to have fallen asleep on his feet. Shira smiled back and dug her own elbow into Roheim's stomach for revenge. _

_"Ow," Roheim muttered. "Alright, I get the drift." _

_"Be quiet! You're annoying me!" Mysha's shrill, nasal voice was far louder and more distracting than any of Roheim's antics. _

_ Shira turned back to the demonstration and tried to ignore Roheim's hands pinching at the sides of her waist. If she didn't give him any attention, he'd turn his efforts towards Mysha or one of the other girls. _

_Tahet's golden beam whirled through the air and clashed against Kavar's green blade. Kavar smiled, leaning forward and pressing his weight against the blade. Strands of blonde hair fell across Tahet's face as she strained to hold her beam steady._

_ "So…how do you plan to get out of this one, Kavar?" _

_"With ease," Kavar said. "Watch carefully, class. I'm going to demonstrate the sun djem."_

_"No, you're not!" Tahet laughed. "I won't let you!"_

_"You don't have any say in the matter! Now pay attention, everyone. Disarming or destroying your opponent's weapon is the ultimate goal of the Jedi in combat."_

_Tahet leaped backward, withdrawing from the clench of blades and arms. "I'm not letting you win that easily. You're going to have to work for it"_

_Shira felt pride swell within her chest and constrict her throat. Tahet's movements were fluid, graceful, her lightsaber drawing glowing paths through the air. One day she would be Tahet's padawan. She wanted it so much that sometimes she made herself sick to the pit of her stomach with wishing._

_"Very good," Kavar chuckled. "I can't fault your technique, but perhaps you'll allow me to disarm you of your lightsaber just for the sake of a demonstration? I'm sure the students will all learn from your example of humility."_

_He parried her attack and unleashed a flurry of quick blows that she ably countered. _

_Tahet grinned and her blue eyes glinted with mischief. "Why don't you let me disarm you, Kavar? Or are you too proud? I'm sure it would be invaluable for the younglings to see that even the mighty can fall!"_

_Shira glimpsed a strange figure standing at the doorway. It was a boy around her age, perhaps a little older, his face crossed with shadows and his eyes coals beneath dark hair. He glared at the group and she was sure that he was envious of them. He wasn't a Jedi youngling or a padawan like the rest of the children. She could see that by his clothing. Who had let him in? She wondered if she should protest, but she didn't want the others to think she was a tattletale. Her pale eyes connected with the boy's smouldering ones and suddenly, she was afraid. _

_Kavar aimed a blow at Tahet's blade, lunging forward in an attempt to throw him off balance. _

_"I think I've got you!" he said._

_She didn't answer. Her body suddenly became very rigid, as though she was dangling from a wire. Her lightsaber slipped from her hands and clattered to the ground. _

_Kavar stared in horror. "Tahet?"_

_She coughed, her face turning pink, then red, then purple, veins bulging in her forehead, cords straining at her neck. Her hands reached up towards her slender throat, clutching at something that no one else could see, grasping and grappling but never managing to dislodge the power that held her in its grip. _

_"Master Kavar! Let her go! Let her go!" The younglings screamed._

_"Tahet!" Shira shouted. "Tahet!" _

_Master Vandar started awake at the shrill cries. "What? Kavar, what's going on here?"_

_"It's not me. I would never!" Kavar said. "It's – it's – I don't know what." _

_Tahet choked, tears trickling down her cheeks as though they were being squeezed out. Suddenly something seemed to release and she dropped to the floor, sobbing out deep breaths. "Oh, oh, oh, ahahah, oh, oh."_

_Along the papery skin of Tahet's throat, there appeared two marks the colour of wine stains, two marks in the shape of strangling hands._

_"It..wasn't...Kavar," she gasped._

_ "What was it?" one of the youngling cried. _

_Tahet's narrow lips stretched into an enigmatic smile._

_ A tear trickled down her cheek and dripped from her chin. She drew a finger over her mouth as though to bar the gate and keep the answer in._

_Shira turned towards the doorway and saw the strange boy dart away into the shadowed corridor. She bit the inside of her cheeks and didn't say a word._

Shira woke up with a jolt, feeling something moist, soft and sticky pressed against her inner arm. It was a white hatchling squirming over her, its gelatinous body slow and clumsy. She gasped and scanned the cave with wild eyes. Insects everywhere, milling around, stuffing the pincer jaws of their greedy young, jousting with spindly limbs, their wheedling voices meshing into a terrible mantra:

_You are Us. Welcome Home. You are Us. Welcome. Home. _

She scrabbled to her feet. Her legs trembled underneath her body. She felt like something that had just been born, shaking, feeble, terribly alive. The insects reached for her with their many arms, the hive mind still buzzing around her, but she stumbled free and ran for the light.

Atton jolted awake with such a start that he almost toppled out of the pilot's seat. While he was sleeping, he'd managed to wind himself into a variety of human knot, his neck twisted to one side, his torso contorted, his arms bent at sharp angles and his legs crossed on top of the console.

"[Friendly Greeting:] Good morning, Meatbag. I trust you have enjoyed a restful night's sleep, full of inspiring scenes of violence."

"Shut up, HK."

HK shuffled away, muttering under his breath like an old man.

"[Statement:] Very well. I do not ask for social niceties. All I desire is to be of service, primarily by blasting organics to smithereens. I will merely suggest that a massacre or two might help to improve your unpleasant behavioral protocols."

Atton sat up and rubbed his eyes, watching the colours move and blur under his closed lids. He could still envision the woman's face. He could still hear the sound of her voice, the sound of her choking and worse yet, unbearable sound of her silence.

In the midst of the nightmare, he'd spotted Shira standing in the crowd. She was much younger, just a kid, but her face was unmistakable, watching him with fever-bright eyes that seemed to devour all the light in the room. He'd never imagined that they would know one another and the sudden awareness of it was a noose closing around his neck.

Prisoner 164 wasn't just a number on his list or a body strapped to a metal chair. She had a history. She had a name.

Her name was Tahet.


	3. Culture Shock

The ship soared over a frozen wasteland, making a sharp turn in the air. It dipped lower and cut across the horizon like a blade. Wavering in the sky, it struggled against gravity and something gave out. Reflecting the knife-glitter of cold sunlight, the ship fell, spinning as it plummeted, a long tail of smoke streaming behind it to mark the descent. It shattered against the icy ground, strewing metal shrapnel across a snow-bound landscape.

Atton glanced down at the toy ship broken at his feet. Just when he was starting to feel comfortable in the pilot's seat again, he had to run smack into another bad omen. It was terrible luck all around. He needed a drink.

He looked up at the small blue-skinned boy who had been flying the little ship via remote control. The brat stared back at him with unnerving red eyes.

"Hey, kid, watch it! You could hurt somebody with that thing."

The boy opened his mouth, his lips shaping words, and out came sounds weirder than a Hutt hacking up a hairball.

Atton narrowed his eyes, then crouched down and examined the wrecked toy. He tried to wipe the look of irritation off his face. If he was going to get any information out of the little ankle-biter, he knew he was going to have to play nice.

He spoke real slow, over-enunciated his words and tried feverishly to look like a responsible adult instead of a spacer half-crazed from a three-month stint flying through the Big Black.

"You…speak…BA-SIC? You…know…what…CAN –TINA…is?"

The kid screeched something in his own language and scurried back towards the settlement doors.

"Wait!" Atton shouted at the boy's back. "Damn it! What did I do?"

"[Indignant Commentary:] How very inhospitable. [Inquiry:] Would you like me to teach the small one a lesson?"

Atton reeled around and found himself looking down the wide barrel of HK-47's blaster carbine.

"No, you idiotic tin can! I thought I told you to stay on the damn ship! You think anyone is going to talk to us when you're running around offering to blast their heads off?"

"[Patient Explanation:] Aside from my superior firepower and obvious targeting precision, I thought you might also benefit from my expertise as a translator and facilitator of interplanetary relations."

"Yeah, well you did a great job with that kid. Maybe now we can go give an old lady a heart attack or something."

HK lowered his weapon and shook his metal head with a disconsolate air.

"[Statement:] Ah, how I wish you meant it, but once again, my tonal receptors indicate you are being facetious. [Commentary:] I will never understand organics' irrational concern for the welfare of their smaller replacement models."

Atton sighed. "When we get inside, tell me if you hear a language you recognize. Otherwise, keep your vocabulator on mute and let me do the talking."

He paused, examining HK's menacing golden visor and his burning amber eyes.

"And for Force sake, try to look friendly. Or at least as inconspicuous as a big clanking heap of junk can be."

"[Patronizing Affirmation:] Very well, Meatbag. Since you ask so nicely, I will attempt to downplay my prowess in deference to your inferior and unthreatening sentient qualities."

"Great. Thanks a million."

They walked through the snow towards the broad double doors of the settlement station. Atton led the way while HK walked at a measured distance behind him like a kath hound on a leash.

Atton pushed through the gates and found himself in a vast climate-controlled courtyard. He'd expected to see a lot more of those blue-skinned types around. Instead, there were at least a dozen even more bizarre-looking species roaming the settlement. One alien shuffled by, creamy white skin and fishy black eyes set off by a mouth full of squirming, sucking tentacles. Gas-masked aliens with elongated skulls conversed in a small cluster, trying to ignore the yammering of a stubby-legged, two-mouthed humanoid gesturing at a rag-tag menagerie of caged creatures. Two giants with faces like leering skulls cast suspicious glances at him and the ever-insufferable HK, who creaked around mumbling threats under his breath and generally making a spectacle of himself.

And then, amidst the endless babble, the restless jostling of the crowds, the stream of incomprehensible chatter punctuated by slurps, snorts, belchs, guffaws and canned music playing from overhead speakers, Atton heard a single word he could understand. "Help!"

He spun around, scanning the crowd for the sole Basic speaker. In a shadowed corner, he saw a flash of a pinkish-beige, distinctly human face, a man lifting his hand out of the crowd the way a drowning victim reaches above the lapping waves before sinking. Five spiky-haired punks seemed pretty intent on shaking him down, dealing out blows with fists clad in studded black leather.

Atton reached for his lightsaber and switched it on. Time to play hero, he mused. Subtlety was overrated anyway.

"Hey HK! You in the mood to do some blasting?"

"[Enthusiastic Confirmation:] Oh, goody. Why, dear Meatbag, do you even need to inquire?"

"That's what I thought."

Atton stepped over and tapped the nearest thug on the shoulder.

The black-haired assailant turned around, his grey face contorted into a menacing grin.

"I'm guessing you're not going to understand this, but nevertheless, I will humbly suggest that you let that man go." Atton gestured with his lightsaber, tracing a figure-eight in the air. "Pretty scary, huh?"

The whole pack of slate-faced thugs stared at the golden beam. One of them snickered. Noticeably undeterred by this light-show, the punk lunged at Atton with a switchblade.

"Okay, have it your way," Atton muttered.

The lightsaber diced off one grey-fingered, black-gloved hand still clutching a switchblade.

HK took this as his cue to open fire on the remaining company. Suddenly, everything went crazier than a flurry of one-winged shyracks, with everybody shouting, ducking, stampeding through doors, shoving and trampling each other in their desperate bids to get out of the way.

Well, so much for flying under the radar, Atton thought.

When the smoke cleared, there were five thugs sprawled on the ground.

"[Satisfied Evaluation:] Ah, yes. Most efficient," HK purred.

The thugs' victim climbed to his feet and dusted off the back of his tunic. He surveyed the bodies of his former assailants with unmitigated delight, scraping a hand through tawny hair. Atton guessed the guy to be in his late fifties, with the leathery skin and the shifty eyes of a life-long spacer. These types always came shambling into Nar Shaddaa, hanging around the Ref District looking for a few games of pazaak, a cantina meal and good night's sleep after a long haul through space.

"I'm right thankful for your assistance," the man said. "When I saw you in the crowd, I figured you for a fellow Republic man. Wasn't expecting a Jedi though."

Atton tucked the lightsaber back under his jacket. "If it makes you feel any better, I'm not a Jedi. I just like to borrow their equipment sometimes."

"Hey, Jedi or not, it's good enough for me!" the old spacer laughed, offering a handshake. "The name's Konrad Nalo."

Atton shook the dry old hand, surprised by the firmness of Nalo's grip. "Atton Rand." Ah, his first lie of the day. It was always important to make a good first impression.

"Well, now, I don't suppose you're from Corellia, are you? You've got a bit of the look about you. 'Rocket fuel for blood', they say."

"Nope. Sorry. Nar Shaddaa, born and bred," Atton lied again. It felt good after months' of excruciating honesty. "The Smuggler's Moon. You heard of it?"

"Now, what kind of question is that?" Konrad chuckled. "Of course I done heard of it. I was just hoping to do some conspirin' with a fellow son of Corellia in this damned miserable place. This your first time on Csilla?"

"Yeah, and if things keep on the way they're going, it'll be my last time too."

"[Polite Suggestion:] Perhaps you'd like to introduce me to our latest non-target? Ahem, I mean, 'acquaintance'?"

Atton threw an exasperated glance at HK. It was just like the crazed can-opener to turn a room into his own personal shooting gallery and then insist on a proper etiquette.

"Meet HK-47, the most obnoxious killing machine in Galactic Space. He's looking to find out if he's got any competition in the Unknown Regions, but I sincerely doubt it."

"Damn droids. Don't have any toleration for 'em myself," the grizzled old spacer replied. "Now I don't imagine you'd be interested in a drink of something, my way of saying 'thank-you' and all? The Foreign Quarter lounge is a bit of a walk, but it's a hell of a lot better than facing this place stone-cold sober."

Atton grinned and slapped Konrad on the shoulder. "You and me, I think we're going to get along just fine."

Revan moved quickly through the long grass, his eyes fixed on the ship almost concealed behind a scanty row of trees. If he was smart, if he was lucky, he might be able to use it to trace the Sith marauders back to their encampments.

These new Sith still baffled him. They were certainly uglier and more spiteful than the usually crop of dark-siders, but frankly, he had expected more from the 'True Sith'. He knew that he should feel grateful that it was a case of false advertising, but somehow it just didn't sit right. It made Revan wonder if he was missing something, something important.

Of course, he'd always suffered from these jabs of paranoia, an insatiable desire for more knowledge, more control, another edge on the game. They were what had kept him alive for so long. In the days when his face had been a metal mask, his mind had always been churning, churning, simmering with the schemes of his underlings, their ambitions, their seething frustrations, their whispered conspiracies in narrow corridors. He wasn't that man anymore, but the instincts were still there, gliding beneath the surface like the silhouettes of firaxans in deep water.

The Sith ship was small but well-built, one of those tiny wonders of design that he'd seen so frequently in the Unknown Regions. The crafts out here made Republic technology look big, clumsy and hopelessly extravagant.

The gangplank was still down, which made him think there was probably at least one guard remaining. Revan turned on his stealth field generator. There was no reason to take any unnecessary risks.

He crept into the ship, checking rooms for sentinels as he passed. He glanced into a room of holding cells, but they were all empty. The cargo bay contained a few boxes that he would want to investigate, but he didn't see any Sith lurking about.

It was only when he reached the cockpit that he saw the last member of the Sith raiding party, a heavy-limbed creature examining a navigation panel with narrow, piggish eyes. His skin was mottled, a mix of cloudy gray and a raw pink like uncooked meat. Revan stepped forward slowly, poised for a quick kill.

From the sudden shift of the Sith pilot's beady eyes, Revan could tell the creature sensed a presence in the room with him. The Sith stumbled back from the panel, scanning the room wildly, a faint hiss coming from between gapped teeth. His flabby cheeks puffed out, wheezing out frantic breaths.

Revan stuck him with the lightsaber, shoving the blade right up between the ribs.

The pilot gave a choking gasp, his face registering the searing heat of the blade. His little piggy eyes were fixed on Revan with a strange mix of horror and recognition.

He didn't die as quickly as Revan had hoped. No, he staggered away a few steps as though he might get away, hacking up blood as he went. Revan struck again, this time at the back of his neck. The beam severed most of the neck, causing the head to droop down like a wilted flower on a sickly stem.

The creature died. It was a bloody execution, ignoble as anything, the worst kill Revan had experienced in recent memory. He almost felt ashamed, but then he remembered that he had work to do. He sat down in the pilot's seat and started scanning the navigation logs.

The Foreign Quarter lounge was a surprisingly efficient little venture. The tables were narrow and clean, the clientele sedately went about the business of getting themselves drunk and the soles of one's boots didn't stick to the pristine marble floors. It was like a Coruscanti bureaucrat's office, but with dimmer lighting and more booze. Atton disliked it on sight, but he was the first to admit that it was better than nothing.

Konrad ordered drinks in the local language he called 'Cheun'. The cyborg bartender was another one of those blue-skinned humanoids, but in addition to arms, he had two extensible metal tentacles attached to his sides. These mechanical coils would stretch out and grab glasses or tips from across the restaurant or seize strange concoctions from distant shelves. Atton watched the process with a combination of revulsion and curiosity, unsure of whether he found the sight abominable or considered it the most entertaining thing he'd ever seen. He glanced over to see how HK was taking it.

The droid's yellow eyes glowed with unusual fervor. "[Indignant Declaration:] It is most undignified to see the blue ones supplementing their frail meatbag bodies with parts belonging to advanced droid models."

"Those Chiss cyborgs are somethin' alright," Konrad said. "I'm just not rightly sure what that something is."

"Why do they get those implants? It's interesting to look at, but it seems kind of unnecessary."

Konrad frowned, his voice lowering to a conspiratorial whisper. "Some of those nutsy Chiss get them 'cause they think it's going to get them a job serving with their stuck-up aristocrats. This is a real strange place, my friend. You see some mighty unusual things on this side of the galaxy."

The bartender's lengthy arms stretched out towards them, plunking two carbonated purple drinks on their table.

Atton sniffed his glass and then took an experimental sip.

It took him a few agonizing seconds before he managed to gag the swill down. In all his frantic, clawing years in the Shad, he'd never chugged down something that tasted like so much like bad-tasting poison or worse-tasting medicine. As thirsty and desperate as he was, he wasn't sure he could manage another drink without spewing his guts across the well-polished floors.

He pushed his glass aside and tried to ignore the aftertaste still burning on his tongue. "They got any juma in this Force-forsaken place?"

Konrad chuckled, leathery skin crinkling at the corners of his eyes and mouth. "Welcome to the Unknown Regions, kid. It's Purple Paxa or nothing around here. If you're looking for blue-skin cyborgs, Vagaari freaks and hives full o' Killik bugs bent on turning you into a joiner, this is the place to be. If you want juma, good-lookin' dancers, decent music or palatable food, well, you took at wrong turn back at Aduba-5."

"So tell me a little about this crazy, mixed-up side of the galaxy," Atton said. "I like to know what odds I'm facing." He sloshed the Purple Paxa around in his glass. He regarded the liquid grimly, hopelessly. No relief in sight.

"Okay, well, you asked for it. You want to hear an old man ramble about his travels, you came to the right place too," Konrad's unkempt brows lifted emphatically, watery grey eyes widening. "You ever hear tell of a ghost planet? A lot of people say it's a load of bunk, but I've seen it with my own two eyes. I stopped on this little space rock once, just to do repairs, and ended up getting into a squabble with the shade of my ex-wife! It put a few grey hairs on my head, I can tell you."

Atton smirked. "Heh, yeah, and I've seen a moon full of three-breasted twi'leks. C'mon, I'm not some wide-eyed kid fresh out of Deralia or something. I've seen enough to know when I'm being sold a gizka."

"Well, Rand, you obviously ain't drank Purple Paxa before and I'm guessing that fight back there was the first time you'd ever seen a Nagai gang," Konrad replied, kicking back a long draught of the purple liquid. "That ghost planet is as real as the droid sitting next to you and heck of a lot more frightening, if you don't mind me saying so."

HK cut in. "[Logical Correction:] It is relatively simple to frighten sentients. My primary system objective is the far more rousing undertaking of blasting squishy organic bodies with maximum speed and efficiency."

Atton rolled his eyes. If HK spent as much time slaughtering people as he did yakking about it, the galaxy would be much emptier place.

"Look, Konrad, buddy, I'll try to keep an open mind. But a planet full of ghosts? You've got to admit, that's pretty out there."

"I've seen stranger business yet, I'll tell you that!" the old man said. "About six months back, my buddy and I, we set about exploring this big black asteroid way out in this place we called The Murk Way. It was a chunk of pure onyx, you see, and we go figuring it could be mined. The prospecting is good, the only problem is somebody done got there first and turned it into some kind of ritual place. Just circles of bones going round and round all over the surface. It made me real antsy just looking at it. I told Meerska not to go poking around, but he never listened to sense."

"And?"

"Something went wrong in that boy's head, after he went messing around with those bones. I can't say what done it, but he came back with a head full of crazy plans, like something out there been whispering notions in his ear. He told me stories, stories like you don't want to never hear."

Konrad shook his head, his hands tugging at graying tufts of his shaggy hair. He wet his lips with a long drink of Paxa before he continued.

"Poor kid had got the blood fever in his brain. I couldn't keep him around for being afeard he was going to take a knife and slit a big ol' ear-to-ear grin 'cross my throat. Left Meerska marooned way out in Farschi and I don't know what became of him since. To my way of thinking, it was probably something no good. It's none of my business, anyway. It ain't nothing to me anymore. But you watch out for it."

Atton's eyes narrowed. "Interesting. So you ever hear anybody mention something called 'True Sith'? I've got…a friend…she's looking for them and I'm looking for her."

"So you figure that you find what she's after and maybe you'll find her?" Konrad's eyes caught a strange glint of light. "I don't know anything about no 'True Sith' but you hear stories roundabouts. The closest I ever been to evil that deep was that black ritual place I told you about. I never seen one of those Sith creatures in my life and I'm damned thankful for it. Now, no offense intended, but your lady friend sounds a little - "

Atton laughed. "A little what? Reckless? Crazy? Yep. And believe me, those are just the beginning of her charms."

"Eh, well, you got your reasons. Hell, back in the day, I would have chased my Gerta into a rancor's nest, no doubt about it," Konrad replied. He slurped down the last of his drink. "Then I went and married her. After that, she got to be the rancor and I couldn't run away fast enough."

The old man stared at his empty glass with a look of barely concealed disgust. "You know, I've been looking for somebody I can trust to help me out with a little business venture. You're a Republic man and you're good in a fight. Heck, if it weren't for the 'saber, you'd remind me a little of myself when I was first starting out in explorations. Think you might be up for the job?"

"Depends what you had in mind."

"I can't talk about it here. Not with all these folks around, listening in and such. Come out to my ship, I'll explain my way of thinking and we can speak plain."

Atton slouched back in his chair. "I don't know. I'm not looking for any sort of smuggling work right now."

"This ain't smuggling, no sir. This is explorations, my friend, and it could make us both richer than Hutts if it's done right. I'm looking to retire in luxury one of these days with a couple of pretty Echani housemaids and a storeroom full of credits. You help me out and you might be able to do the same."

Atton sighed. Why not? After all, the guy was pretty ancient. If it came down to an ambush, he could take him. Besides if his new friend tried to roll him, he was pretty sure HK would enjoy blasting the old coot into space dust.

"What the hell? I'll hear you out."

"That's the spirit, sonny. Just let me go on over yonder and pay the tab and we'll get out of this joint. I think you're going be very interested in what I got to offer."

Revan had walked back to Kan's office in Aartdil with news to report. This time he walked the streets with a hood drawn up over his face, his lightsaber carefully concealed. On this occasion, nobody looked at him twice. There were other things to see.

A crowd had gathered around the colonial administration building, listening as a Chiss man ranted on the evils of House Csalpa from his perch on bloodied white steps.

"[They call us children, my friends. They say that they take care of us, even as they let us suffer and starve and die! They call themselves our family house, but they have lived on the backs of our real fathers, on the blood and milk of our true mothers.]"

The speaker paused for dramatic effect, his crimson eyes wide in a narrow blue face.

"[What will we do, my friends, my fellows? We will crush the tyrants' heads under our heels!]"

The mob cheered wildly.

"[We will sprinkle the crops with their blood! And when we are done, we will declare Farschi a free world!]"

The crowd convulsed with restless delight, howling, and pumping fists in the thick air.

"[Tell it, Meerska! Meerska Freem!]" a voice shouted and others chimed in, echoing the name or chanting the lyrics to the Ascendancy anthem in a crude sing-song.

Revan watched in horror and fascination, all too familiar with the beast of the crowd, at once so generous and so terrible, so flattering and so fickle. Put a good orator in front of them or a man mad enough to have a vision, and it was like throwing a spark onto a woodpile. It was too late. The reinforcements he needed to fight the Sith threat would not come, not now.

He looked again at the yellow Csalpa banner, torn and defaced, the ugly splotch of graffiti like a wound on white-washed walls. He stared up at the balcony, at the building's most terrible new addition: Astraroth Kan's battered body, hung by the heels


	4. The Best Laid Plans

The computer screen projected a map of astounding proportions, an enormous sphere crisscrossed by the yellow trajectories of hyperspace routes and dotted with planets, moons and asteroid fields. The image flooded the ship's control room, sending beams of light dancing across the low ceiling and shadows slinking across the thick walls.

It was amazing, so miraculous that before he could stop himself, before he could think of a hitch in the plan, Atton actually gasped.

"Beautiful sight, ain't it?" Konrad said. "This is years of exploration you're looking at. Maps out the better part of the Unknown Regions."

"I guess they're going to have to come up with a new name for this place. 'Unknown' isn't going to cut it anymore," Atton murmured.

"Oh, they can call it whatever they want. Once I've sold this to some high-and-mighty folks back in the Republic, I'm taking my credits and settling down far away from these damn filthy blue-faces. I've spent near thirty years around them Chiss and I'm getting to the end of my rope."

"It seems like you've got yourself set up. What do you need me for?"

"Well, the map ain't finished yet, see?" Konrad spun the projection around and pointed to the black patches. "I'm looking for somebody to help me scout these out. Czerka don't pay for half-measures, you know."

The map whirled around again, the tiny lights blurring before Atton's eyes.

"Czerka. What have they got to do with this?"

"Now, now, I don't want to be givin' away my trade secrets." A sly look crept onto Konrad's face. "Let's just say that Czerka is always looking to exploit new and interesting opportunities for business."

"[Approving Statement:] While they are not my manufacturers, I consider Czerka's organizational policies to be most…satisfactory. It is rare to find sentients who are so very ruthlessly profitable."

Atton glanced at HK, who was leaning over the map with unnerving interest, his golden eyes tracing paths from world to world. Go figure, he thought. The president of the Czerka fan club.

"Look, buddy, I know quite a bit about Czerka. I've seen firsthand what they do. I like credits as much as the next guy, but I don't think they're the sort of people you're looking to get involved with."

"Oh, really, now do you, sonny?" Konrad said. "I know right well who I want to be involved with and that's the people who can get me paid. It don't make a lick of difference to me whether they're good, bad or ugly. Czerka can blow the Csilla Foreign Quarter, the Chiss and all their clannishness to high hell for all I care. Good riddance to 'em, that's what I say."

Atton looked at the map and this time, every nameless planet that shone from its grid was Telos. Even after everything that Bao-Dur had done, the life he'd lived and the sacrifice he'd made, Telos would die, not just once but a hundred times over.

"You want to cancel this deal with Czerka," Atton said, waving his hand in front of Konrad's face. "You want to hand the map over to me. You know that I'll keep it safe."

The old man's leathery face contorted into a sneer. He waved his hand back at Atton. "You're not very good at them Jedi mind tricks, kid. Now those Chiss would probably sell you out at the first chance – they don't cotton much to off-worlders, you know. Why are you going to do them any favours?"

"I don't know. Call it a whim. Blue has always been my favourite colour," Atton smirked. "You don't have to like my reasons, but one way or the other, I'm taking that map."

Konrad withdrew his blaster but before he could fire, his body froze in a beam of pulsating static.

Electronic eyes gleaming with anticipation, HK leveled his blaster carbine at the old man's head.

"[Commentary:] I am so fond of a stationary target."

"Lay off, HK. I need you to help me download this map file."

"[Cautionary Statement:] Very well, Meatbag. It is most fortuitous that my programming prevents me from entertaining petty human grievances. Otherwise, I would be quite disappointed in you."

Atton didn't glance up from the computer console. "Trust me, you'll get over it."

A metal plug extended from HK's side and inserted itself into the computer. The droid's vocabulator gave a faint rumble, his metal frame vibrating as his systems read and copied the data.

"[Helpful Suggestion:] Next time you wish to download information, perhaps you should invest in a datapad."

"What, it wasn't good for you? I always thought interfacing was the most fun a droid could have without a hydrospanner." Atton squinted back down at the computer console. "Now how am I supposed to delete this thing?"

HK solved the problem with characteristic ease, bashing the computer with the butt end of his carbine. He repeated this several times for good measure.

"[Evaluation:] There. Ah, yes. That should be quite sufficient."

Atton glanced at Konrad's paralyzed figure, just beginning to ease out of stasis.

"Sorry. It's a tough break, huh?" he said to the frozen face still twisted with scorn. "You really should learn to pick better friends."

By the time Konrad shook off the stasis and stared, aghast, at the wrecked console, they had slipped back into the courtyards of the Foreign Quarter, just two more off-worlders in a bustling scrum of strangers.

Twenty-four Chiss recruits from Rhigar's military academy. Less than a quarter of the number they'd promised him. Two officers, two ships and ten turrets. No matter how many times Revan went over the math, the numbers refused to increase and the odds didn't get any better. A direct assault was out of the question. He had been forced to change plans.

Sitting in the captured Sith ship, he watched the red button flash on the console. He had activated the distress signal two hours ago. Now it was a matter of waiting, one of the worst parts of waging war, the slow bleeding out of doubt, the agonizing attempts to kill time until the unsuspecting Sith came and the ambush could begin. The cloaked ships waited on either side of the drifting craft, ready to the attack.

"[Sir, we've sighted a ship,]" a tall soldier said.

Revan nodded. "[Well done. Prepare yourselves, men.]"

He glanced out the bay window and caught a glimpse the ship in question. It was undeniably rustier than the last time he'd seen it, but its bronze plating, its double barreled engines and the quick-silver flash of its underside as it swooped past were unmistakable, unforgettable. The Ebon Hawk.

Revan flew to the comm-link. "[Don't fire on that ship! We're receiving reinforcements! I repeat, do not fire on that ship!]"

"[We copy,]" a voice answered. The young corporal. Revan recognized the voice but couldn't remember the name to save his own life. Something with too many consonants. During the Wars, he had known every officer under him by name, where they were from, what their prospects were. He was slipping.

But it didn't matter so much anymore, now that he wasn't alone. After all this time, she had come. He'd been watching for her through it all, hoping in spite of himself that she would find him. And now she was here. Wonderful, darling, stubborn girl. He should have expected it. He couldn't wait to see the vexation melt from Bastila's face when he took her in his arms.

"[They're docking,]" the soldier reported.

"[I'll be right there,]" Revan said, smoothing down his black hair.

He rubbed his beard with an anxious hand. If he'd known, he would have shaved for the occasion. Bastila would never mention it. No, she wouldn't say a word. She'd just regard him with a sideways smile of admonishment, understanding his haphazard grooming as evidence that he couldn't get along without her. As usual, he'd let her think she was right.

He strode down the narrow corridor, brushing the wrinkles from his coarse robe. By the time he entered the central chamber, he had assumed the persona of Revan the Redeemed, the Savior, the Jedi Paragon Restored, his head lofty, his posture straight, his vision unclouded. There was only one problem. Bastila wasn't there.

In her place stood a woman dressed in a tattered blue robe with her arms crossed tightly over her chest. She looked at him from beneath sullen brows, her body bristling with contempt. After all these years, she still possessed the brooding beauty of her Academy youth but now there was a famine in the glimmer of her green eyes. She was as pale as a ghost and she looked like something that would haunt him to the end of his days.

"Shira?"

"Hello, Revan."

"You haven't changed much."

"You have. Or, at the very least, your face has," she said. "I wouldn't have recognized you if it weren't for the eyes."

"Make-over courtesy of the Jedi Council. I'm not too fond of the nose, but the rest of it is tolerable."

Shira frowned. "Well, how nice for you. A new beginning."

He paced back a few steps, turning his back on her. He didn't want her eyes upon him. It was during moments like these that he remembered why he'd started wearing the mask.

"Why are you here?"

"It's not a social call," Shira said. "I came on Kreia's instructions."

Revan gave a bitter laugh. "I'm sure Kreia must be pleased to have such a good little apprentice. In my day, I certainly was never so obedient. What did she tell you? Go to the Unknown Regions and berate Revan unceasingly?"

"No, unfortunately, she thought you did the galaxy a favor. She told me I had to help you. So I gritted my teeth together, ignored all my better instincts and found my way out here. You want that help or not?"

"I'm not in the position to reject any offers of assistance. If you help me, I'll be grateful for it."

"I'm not here for you," she said. "I'm here because I want to put things right. If that means we've got to work together, then so be it."

"Just keep the past in the past then. I can't change what happened, Shira, and I can't spend the rest of my life hating myself, thinking the galaxy would be better off if I blew my brains out. All I can do is learn from the experience and move on as best I can."

The woman shook her head, her brows knotted together. "Well, from what I see, you've done a pretty good job of moving on, Revan. I just hope you've learned a hell of a lot from the 'experience' because it was an expensive lesson. For Alek, for me, for all those Jedi who trusted you, for those worlds that called you 'hero' that you conquered and destroyed. And why did it all happen? Because it lined up with the little dejarik game you were playing in your head. Well, you win, Revan, and, the rest of us, we lost."

"I don't have to justify myself to you. You chose to follow." He was surprised at the sound of his own voice. It was firmer, more confident than he had anticipated when he'd played this scenario over in his mind. "From what I recall, you were the first to propose we execute Mandalorian prisoners to save on supplies. You were so persuasive, so impassioned. We thought it was a very practical suggestion at the time."

"I know what I did, Revan and I live with it everyday. I don't try to pretend I'm not the person who did those things, that I'm somehow not responsible. I don't just 'put it in the past' as though I can change my name or my face and become a new person."

Revan sighed. "Who says I don't live with it too?"

The familiar sound of droidspeak came babbling from the docking bay corridor just behind Shira. A little droid with a big block of a head came wheeling in, much rustier and worse for the wear, but undeniably T3-M4.

"Mee-mee! Dwoo!" T3 announced, skidding into the center of the room.

Revan crouched down and patted the droid's metal frame. "Hey, little guy. Good to see you."

He glanced up at Shira, who was regarding the touching reunion with a look of distaste. She obviously didn't like having to share her pet droid with a former Dark Lord of the Sith.

"Where'd you find him?"

Shira shrugged. "T3 came with the ship. Kind of a two-for-one deal. He's handy to have around."

"You have no idea."

"I'd forgotten that you were so fond of droids, Revan. I guess it makes sense. You always liked to have your orders followed without question."

Revan turned away from her again, planning his escape route. "As much as I'd love to continue this undoubtedly delightful conversation, we have more pressing concerns. This is a Sith ship we're standing in. I've put out a distress signal. Any minute we should be intercepting a crew of helpful, friendly, vicious Sith who will be sort of perturbed when they discovered it's an ambush. If they manage to board this ship, we're going to have a fight. I hope you're still good with a lightsaber?"

"I was then and I am now," Shira said. "I'll be there when I'm needed."

She pushed past a bewildered Chiss guard and strode off down the corridor.

Revan returned to the cockpit, with T3 chasing at his heels. He eased himself back in the pilot's seat and half-listened as the little droid prattled out pleasant nonsense, more sound than substance Revan patted the droid on the head as though the little metal contraption was an old, drowsy-eyed dog sitting at his feet before a blazing fireside. He tried to clear his mind, to tap into the Force's ceaseless calm, but this time the images were more vivid than ever, both the things he'd done and the things they'd done in his name. When the Sith came, he knew that he'd fight all the more relentlessly because of it. He'd fight the Sith if only to prove he wasn't one of them. Not now. Not ever again, he vowed.

Two grey ships glided through the murky sky. From far off, they looked like pointed slabs of flint, arrowheads carved on some primitive planet. It was only when they swooped low towards the concealed Chiss ships that it was possible to see the turrets that rose from their sleek bodies.

Revan waited until the last possible second. He could feel the anxious presence of the soldiers behind him and Shira's eyes burning into his back. The air was thick, the room heady with adrenalin and the slow, deep breathing of people trying desperately to remain calm in the face of death. At last he felt the net close and he knew the moment was right. He drew the . up to cracked lips.

"[Fire.]"

The Chiss ships revealed themselves in a furious stream of laser blasts, damaging the hull of the nearest Sith cruiser.

Reeling through the sky, the cruisers retorted with a flurry of blood-red beams. They buzzed around the less-maneuverable Chiss vessels like insects tormenting a boma beast, stinging its thick hide with well-placed shots.

Revan smiled his first genuine smile in what felt like days. He still lived for these moments, the lightning play of lasers over the sky, beautiful because it was deadly. This is how a conductor feels at the head of a symphony, he thought.

Another powerful blast from a Chiss turret ripped the side of the already-damaged cruiser asunder, incinerating supplies, scattering scraps of charred metal and debris around the floundering ship.

The other Sith cruiser turned tail, feeling the full wrath of Chiss firepower shaking its frame.

"[Permission to give chase?]" Captain Otranian's nasal voice crackled through the communication system.

"[Yes,]" Revan said. "[I will be boarding the remaining ship to investigate. Do not resume hostilities on it unless I give signal.]"

"[Yes, sir.]"

The larger of the Chiss vessels, the _Karkoskhan_, jolted forward after the fleeing Sith cruiser, a golden blaze of laser fire cutting through the sky.

Revan sprung from the pilot's seat and gave his guards a few quick instructions in Cheun before Shira cut in.

"What you are doing?"

"What does it look like? We're preparing a shuttle. We're going to capture the ship."

"But why?" Shira asked. "Why not push a few buttons and blow it all to hell?"

Revan glared at her.

"I'm not going to stand for insubordination. Next time you decide to question me in front of the troops, you can get in the Hawk and fly your attitude back to Republic space."

He paused, relenting. Whatever his personal feelings, he could use her help. "We need more information about them – data, maps, weapons, hostages, some kind of collateral. If we don't go in and see who they are or what they are, we're fighting blind."

"Fine," Shira said. "If you gave me your reasons, maybe I wouldn't have to 'question you'. I like information, too, Revan. I remember what happened the last time we went into a battle blind and I don't plan to trust you blindly again."

The soldiers readied the shuttle. Within minutes, Revan and Shira were strapped into a glorified tin can and sent spiraling through space towards a damaged Sith vessel, unsure of what fresh new hell awaited them inside


	5. Friend or Foe

Atton shoved open the door to Csilla's frozen surface. He stood in the vestibule for a moment, the door wide open, reluctant to plunge into the cold night after the climate-controlled comfort of the Foreign Quarter. Outside, the black sky was pelted with cottony tufts of snow, falling fast and thick into knee-high drifts. He wasn't looking forward to scraping the stuff off the ship's windows.

He stepped out into the cold, grimacing as the wind lashed at his face. Leaning into the blast, he trudged towards the ship, now just a fuzzy silhouette, an outline nearly erased by the blinding fall of snow. Behind him, he could hear HK rattling through the drifts, his vocabulator emitting whirrs and rumbles of complaint.

When he reached _The Direstar_'s gangplank, he could see the thing had almost completely frozen over.

Atton turned back to HK, who was still tramping through the snow. "It looks like we aren't getting out of here for -"

The switchblade pressed against at his throat made him pause and swallow hard. His adam's apple bobbed against the sharp edge. The nick in his neck was already beginning to trickle warm blood.

"For awhile," he said.

HK stood stalk-still, his blaster-carbine poised to fire. Staring down the barrel, Atton wasn't sure whether the droid planned to shoot him or the Nagai thug at his back. Even if there was a distinct target, he had to wonder how much the psychotic bucket of blots cared which one he hit as long as he hit something. After all, the HK took the term 'friendly fire' much too literally for comfort.

The Nagai gibbered a few phrases in his own language. His breath reeked like something left out to fester in the sun. In the shadows under the ship, Atton could hear several other Nagai cackling, choking up laughter from their withered lungs.

"[Commentary:] This is a distinctly challenging situation, Meatbag. I am preparing to fire on my primary target, but there may be some collateral damage."

"What are the odds of you not painting the snow with my brains?"

"[Statistical Analysis:] Adjusting for weather conditions and physical proximity, I would estimate a 21% percent chance of survival."

Atton grimaced. "I don't think I need to inform you that I have a bad feeling about this."

The blaster carbine fired, setting the darkness alight. Atton screwed his eyes shut, anticipating the worst. Everything seemed to happen at high velocity, the snow driving down against his head, the beams speeding past his ear, the warm spatter against his cheek, the sound of a body falling muffled by the snow. The switch-blade twitched against his skin, made a shallow slice, but in the shock of freezing air, he couldn't feel it for more than second. It was no worse than what he'd done shaving. In any case, he was breathing and it felt good.

Before he even opened his eyes, he'd withdrawn his lightsaber. He spun around and caught the nearest Nagai in the chest with his beam. Another thug saw an opening in his defence and hit him in the ribs with a green shockstick. Electricity shot through Atton's body, sizzling across his chest and melting the snow matted in his hair. He recoiled as the volts surged under his skin, mowing down his assailant but almost losing grip of his 'saber in the process.

On rubbery legs, he managed to stumble away from the next attacker, but put himself directly into HK's line of fire. Blaster beams careened past him, one shot hitting a gang member, the next bouncing off the side of the ship. The exultant droid was firing wild, blasting as many holes in the snow drifts as he was in the grey flesh of Nagai.

As Atton sent another assailant flying into a patch of cloudy, black ice, a blaster beam passed perilously close to his upraised arm.

"Hey HK, you mind maybe not shooting me? You're more dangerous than all these poor suckers put together."

HK's answer was carried away by a furious wind, but Atton could tell from the way the assassin droid's eyes lit up that he took it as a compliment. The thing kept blasting with as much exuberance as his mechanical frame could muster.

"Damn droid," Atton muttered.

His lightsaber made for quick work against a pack of scraggly thugs armed only with second-rate weapons, ugly faces and an overpowering stench of decay. When they finally lined up the bodies, there were nine in total. Atton searched the remains, an activity that always stirred up memories of war, the first one, the one when he'd been fighting on the 'right side'. Whenever someone said soldiering was a noble life, he had to laugh. If military service had done one thing for him, it had made him a pro at picking over corpses and scavenging what he could. Friend or foe, at a certain point, it hadn't mattered anymore. They were dead, you were alive and you took what you needed to keep it that way.

He tucked his findings away into his pocket: the shockstick, two ornate-looking blasters, a wallet full of yellow currency. Hidden in the inside panel of a long leather jacket, he found a datapad, its screen still illuminated by a sector map, planets glowing against a black background. It took him a moment to remember where he'd seen the image before. Atton thrust the datapad up at HK's photoreceptors.

"Look familiar?"

"[Observation:] This image was used in the aged meatbag's galactic map."

"How much you want to bet Konrad stole these? They're probably home-world co-ordinates. Kind of sours me on our good deed for the day."

"[Commentary:] According to my system directives, the only good deed is shooting all targets good and dead, Meatbag."

Atton sighed. "Well, mission accomplished, HK."

He surveyed the bodies one last time, and then started up the Direstar's icy gangplank. "I'm going to warm up the ship's engines. In the meantime, why don't you get started making some snowmen?"

"[Confused Inquiry:] What do you mean, Meatbag? I hardly think this is the ideal moment for silly human entertainments."

He kept forgetting that droids don't do subtlety. "What I mean is I want you to take the bodies and bury them in the snow, as much snow as you can. Cover our tracks."

He was grateful to get inside the ship and away from the whip of the wind. All at once, the pain hit him, not enough to floor him but certainly enough to make him dizzy. There was blood on his neck, blood on his face, one of his ribs was definitely bruised at best and cracked at worst.

When Atton finally reached the pilot's chair, he hit its cushioned seat like a bag of spare parts. Charging up the ship, he let the engines idle and steam up the windows. Heat pumped into the cockpit. It felt like a surge of new blood in his wounded body.

He contemplated flying off without HK. The droid was a lucky shot but it was also a wild one and it didn't give a damn who got hurt. One day the dumb droid luck would run out, but the craziness, the recklessness, would stay the same. Having the thing around was a constant temptation, that vocabulator always squawking at him to shoot as though the thought hadn't already occurred to him, as though the instinct to kill wasn't already branded into his flesh. He'd locked the door on Jaq and starved him into submission, but now there was a new black thing lurking at his shoulder, another hollow voice grinding into his ear.

He would have abandoned HK on Csilla and played deserter again, but he needed that map if he was going to find the ritual grounds Konrad had described. If he knew anything about Jedi, it was that you went looking for trouble, you were likely to find them in the process. With the map downloaded on HK's system, finding trouble would be significantly easier.

Besides the map file, Atton knew there was another pressing reason to keep an eye on HK: left to his own devices, who knew what havoc a lone assassin droid might wreak? After all the blood staining his hands, he wasn't sure he was willing to kill more innocents by proxy. There was no way around it. As unpredictable as he could be, as malignant as his loyalty might become, the droid would have to stay. For now, anyway.

The lights flickered and the damaged ship shuddered beneath their feet. Golden sparks shot from a damaged computer console, spurting up like an electric fountain and searing against the deck floor. As Shira fought, she could feel the sparks sizzling against her cheeks, a hot rain amidst the feverish dance of lightsabers. She whirled around, finding grace at last in the hiss of her 'saber, in the fluid motion of her arms as she countered the Sith officer's attack.

She could tell this Sith was young despite his withered skin and hooded brow. It was his eagerness that betrayed him. He was excited at the thought of all the bodies he would flay and intoxicated by the illusion of his power, a power that had not yet exacted its cost. Brandishing his 'saber, he stared at her as though he had already stabbed her, the way a scientist might look at a butterfly stuck on a pin.

The lights went out again. In the darkness, the Sith's black saber appeared only as a glimmering trail of blue efflorescence. Shira concentrated, allowing her intuition and the Force to guide her movements. The Sith lunged forward and Shira dodged to the side, slowly maneuvering him. He did not know that she was in control now, if only in these moments, when she stood in the furnace of battle and heard her pulse pounding in her ears.

The young officer swiped at her again with his blade, but this time, instead of sidestepping the attack, she tripped him with a quick Echani move. The spiked tread of her black boot slammed into his gut and sent him reeling back onto the damaged console. The Sith sputtered and writhed as high voltage surged through his limbs. Shira turned away as the charred body slumped to the floor, hitting the deck with a soft thud. As if by magic, the ship's generator kicked in and the power flicked on again.

"That's one way of turning on the lights," Revan said. "Of course, I generally prefer a light switch, but Sith are handy too."

He proceeded to fling a series of lockers at his opponent with his mind, tossing them up as though they were an afterthought.

"Show-off," Shira muttered.

She was almost pleased when none of the lockers managed to hit their target, a tall Sith female with scarred cheeks. Instead, the containers bashed against the floor, spilling out their stashes across the command deck.

Something rolled across the floor and the Sith woman snatched it up greedily. Grinning, she raised it above her head like a prize, her marked face contorting into a triumphant grin. It took Shira a second to realize what it was: a grenade, one with enough force to blow a hole in the already damaged ship.

Shira flung herself forward as the Sith woman's fingers locked around the pin, ready to tug. As the lightsaber gouged into the pallid grey throat, the grenade slipped out of the long-fingered hand and spun across the floor, stopping at Revan's foot.

He knelt down and gingerly picked it up.

"Intact. Thankfully." He glanced down at the Sith woman's body hunched over the sharp end of a locker. "Can't say the same for our grenade-throwing friend here."

"Cut the comedy," Shira replied. "It doesn't go well with corpses."

"Just trying to break the tension. You used to have a sense of humor."

"I used to have a lot of things," she said. "So what's the big plan?"

Revan sheathed his lightsaber and started to rifle through his supply pack. He withdrew a fistful of computer spikes. "I'm going to hack into the navicomputer here and collect whatever hyperspace co-ordinates I can. Hopefully it will help us to track their bases and any other locations they like to frequent. I need you to investigate the rest of the ship."

"Alright," she said.

Revan liked to be in charge and she knew it would be easier to let him work under the delusion that he was still the fearless leader standing astride a galactic army. Never mind that his forces had been reduced to a unit of Chiss soldiers and herself, a Jedi cast-off – she had no doubt that Revan would continue to conduct himself as though the Republic was still singing his name to the skies and using his neck as a convenient place to hang medals.

Shira plunged into the darkened corridor, holding her lightsaber before her as a lantern. She placed her hand against the glassy wall to steady herself as she slunk forward, peering into each room that she passed. As her eyes adjusted, it became easier to distinguish shapes in the fuzzy darkness. Just ahead of her, the door to the dormitory yawned open, revealing a row of ghostly, white-sheeted bunks.

She crept into the dormitory and crouched at the side of the nearest bunk. If she knew anything about soldiers, it was that they kept their most interesting possessions close to them, hoarding what little privacy they could. She lifted the mattress and felt underneath, and then snaked her arm under the bed. Her fingers brushed over something square and solid. Stretching her arm further, she managed to pull the object close enough to grasp it in her hand and withdraw it. It was a box made of dark mahogany, carved with child-like designs of unblinking eyes and rows of squiggly lines that looked like choppy water. In its center, it had an old-fashioned mechanical lock in the menacing shape of a dragon's jaws.

She thought of him before she could stop herself. Atton had always liked a good lock. Maybe it was because he himself was a locked room, one that she had never been able to tease open, even with promises of forgiveness, of love, of a redemption she couldn't find for herself but nevertheless believed she could pluck down from the sky for him. She had become good at breaking her promises.

Whatever she found inside the box, it couldn't be worse than what she knew Atton had locked inside himself. The same hands that had strangled Tahet had caressed her neck and strung a silver chain around her throat. It served her right for believing a man trained to live lies, for refusing to break into his mind despite all Kreia's warnings. She had pretended that she could read the broken lines of his palms, tracing them to their origin like the blue paths of charted rivers. She had deceived herself in trusting those nimble hands. They were the hands of a thief and they had unlocked her too easily.

All that she knew now was that she couldn't pick locks. She would dash that box to splinters if she had to, to get what was inside. She lifted the box over her head and was about to dash it against the metal bed frame when she heard someone bumbling down the hall outside, fingers scraping against the walls.

Tucking the box under her arm, she rose up on the balls of her feet and moved towards the edge of the door. Under the violet beam of her 'saber, she saw the terrified face of a young Chiss man and a pair of trembling hands held palms up.

She lowered her weapon and said one of the few Chiss words she knew, the word for 'hello'. He blurted out a lengthy response, his thin body wracked with the effort of speech, but all she could do in reply was guide him down the corridor to the command deck where Revan waited.

When she entered the room, Revan was still deeply absorbed with the navicomputer, his back turned, his head lowered and his fingers jabbing quickly at the keys.

"I've found a few strategic locations," he said. He didn't seem to expect a response to this and Shira certainly didn't plan to stand around marveling at his ingenuity.

"I found a Chiss prisoner walking in the hall."

Revan didn't look up. "That's odd. Only one?"

The ship rattled underneath their feet, causing the rescued prisoner to nearly lose his balance. Shira caught him by the arm and steadied him. He eyed her warily, his gaze shifting between her face and the box still tucked under her arm. He had been peering over at that box ever since she'd discovered him.

"He's the only one I've found. You want me to multiply him like a gizka?"

Pressing down on a key with a final decisive tap, Revan turned to examine the Chiss man. "The Sith marauders usually capture entire households. Many prisoners, not one. If he's the only one on this ship, he might be significant to them."

Revan spoke to the man in hurried Cheun. The Chiss man responded with a few short phrases, demonstrating markedly better pronunciation.

"He says there are no others, which is good because I doubt this ship is going last much longer," Revan said. "Anyway, I have everything I need."

Having come to this conclusion, Revan turned on his heel and strode off towards the docking bay without a backwards glance, leaving Shira fuming. It was just like him to walk away like that. He knew full well that she'd have to tail behind him, enforcing the idea that she was his underling to bossed and scolded.

As much as she hated chasing after a megalomaniacal control-freak who was too smart for his own good and too arrogant for anyone else's, she knew it could be worse. She could be back in that white, sun-lit room, lolling in bed with Tahet's killer, laughing, imagining that she could sweep the past into a corner like dust that lay heavy on the wooden floors. At least here she had truth and a sense of mission, something she could salvage from the wreck of her life. At least here, there was a fight where she could prevail or die trying. It was better than sparring with shadows.

On the security cameras, everything appeared in black and white. The images on the screen were blurry and Revan's face was partially obscured so that Shira could only make out the predatory jut of his nose and the firm line of his jaw. The cameras didn't process sound and each gesture displayed on the console screen had dream-like quality, as though Revan and the rescued prisoner were moving underwater. Nevertheless, Shira recognized Revan's games, the way he leaned forward on the table cajoling the Chiss man and then stood up, circling the seated captive and whispering insinuations. Soon he would ease back in his chair and ingratiate himself with the nervous man as though they were a couple of friends lounging around with cigarras clenched between their teeth.

Years ago, she'd skimmed through the sixth edition of Revan's interrogation manual in the time she snatched away from battles and strategy sessions. Shira knew his proven techniques, the unnerving games that turned on a knife's edge between camaraderie and menace, even the order in which they should occur. The manual had explained every step as concisely as if it was instructing readers on how to disassemble a hyperdrive. She'd left the datapad lying face-down on her bedside table the morning before she gave Bao-Dur the final order.

She watched as Revan slammed his fist on the table, in a pantomime performance of anger. The display might have fooled a casual observer, but Shira knew all too well that he did not get angry. Genuine rage would mean admitting that he had lost control and above all things, Revan loved control. Even back in the dark days, his displeasure would manifest itself as an exaggerated calm and consideration, a quiet smile as ominous as the clouds that gathered to spear down rain on the scorched grass of Dantooine. It was only once the offending underling turned his back, assured of his master's confidence, that Revan's smile would fade, that he would unleash his kath hounds and let them taste blood.

Contrary to Shira's suspicion, Revan did not ease back into his seat and resume coaxing the witness with shows of fraternity. Instead, he circled the table and walked out of the room altogether, slamming the door behind him. She could hear his footsteps reverberating down the serpentine corridors of the Rhigar military complex.

She quickly glided away from the security console and returned to studying the wooden box and its strange contents. In the main compartment of the box, a row of archaic scalpels, knives and saws gleamed against a red velvet lining. When she'd reached further down into the lower compartment, she'd discovered a tangle of gold chains, bracelets, jeweled pins, heirloom wrist watches, a scattering of old coins tinged with rust. It was a jarring juxtaposition of violence and luxury, one that sent a cold thrill through her chest. The treasure trove didn't seem to belong to one person, a single body, but to countless hands, arms, fingers, wrists, throats, ankles of varying shapes and sizes. Some of the objects were rough-hewn, some were gaudy and others were delicate and finely-crafted, expensive work. It was nonsense, haphazard hoarding like the inside of a krayt dragon's lair.

Shira was feigning intense interest in an elegantly looped chain when Revan entered the room. Letting the chain dangle from her fingers, she aimed for nonchalance.

"How's the questioning going?"

Revan raised an eyebrow. "You know perfectly well how it's going. I didn't expect you to resist the temptation of that security camera."

She dropped the necklace back into the box and shut the lid. "Those techniques of yours don't seem to be working. So much for that sixth edition manual."

"The ninth edition was the best. Too bad you missed it."

Revan slumped back against the wall, brushing a few stray tendrils of black hair back from his smooth brown face. He seemed to be settling in and making himself comfortable, which made Shira distinctly uncomfortable. When Revan started to get too friendly, you could be sure he was going to ask you for an unpleasant favor.

"The prisoner – Krysthan Sandor, that's his name – he's polite as anything but he's set on making himself entirely useless," Revan sighed. "If you were to listen to him, he closed his eyes as soon as the Sith captured him and didn't open them up until we came charging to the rescue. I went so far as to try extracting a few details through his mind, but his resistance is impressive. I'd venture to say he might be Force-sensitive, if only because we know how easy it is to crack into the heads of most blankers."

Blanker. Shira hadn't heard that word in years. It was the term padawans had coined to describe the lackluster majority who couldn't use the Force or at least, the word they deployed when the masters weren't within earshot.

"Blanker? Force, Revan, what are you? Fourteen?"

"It's a useful term. When did you get to be so politically correct?"

Revan smiled, his wine-dark lips drawing back to reveal a row of startlingly white teeth. Shira knew it wasn't really a smile, just as his face wasn't really a face, but simply another mask in an endless series of disguises. She could peel back masks until her fingers bleed but she would never reveal Revan's true features, the vulnerable flesh behind the metal plating. She wasn't even sure that he could find it anymore, after years of costumes, body doubles, scheming and subterfuge, false laughter and daggers lodged in turned backs.

"Anyway," he continued, "I came to see if you would sit in on the interview and help me get Sandor talking. When you're not being self-righteous, you have a surprisingly soothing presence."

Shira narrowed her eyes. "No, I don't. You used to be a better liar."

"Fine, you want it straight out?" Revan said. "I need you to bond with him, Shira. I can't make him talk but I know you can get into his head and get the information we need. He can lie to me, but once you've done your work, he'll tell us everything willingly, no questions asked."

Shira stared down at the mahogany box in her hands, her eyes tracing over the elaborate carvings. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes, I do," Revan said. "You forget that I've seen it all first-hand. I remember the way you twisted Atris, Tahet and Kavar around your little finger, and you were just a padawan then. Why do you think I sent Alek to recruit you? I know talent when I see it. You took a bunch of troops who thought a teenage girl general was a bad joke and turned them into a mob of fanatics who'd throw themselves on a grenade if you so much as asked it. By the time you were done with them, they would have thanked you for Malachor, even while the air was being crushed out of their lungs. That's loyalty you can't buy with Republic wages. When I appointed you, I knew you could ensure it."

She was about to interrupt him, but he spoke over her protestations.

"Don't play dumb with me. I've seen what you can do. Your power has grown since I last saw you, thanks to Malachor, no doubt, and the fascinating little incident of your exile. It's hungrier than I've ever seen it. I'm just asking you to use it for the greater good, Shira."

"Whose greater good, Revan? Probably your own," she snarled. "I suggest you go to hell."

Revan chuckled. "One day, maybe. Today you're going to help me with this, Shira. It's the only way we're going to manage that rescue mission."

It rankled, but she knew he was right. It would be better to turn the curse into a blessing if she could. If she was angry, it was because it was painful to listen to him speak about the old masters, about Alek and the soldiers, to see his old eyes planted in an anonymous new face unscarred by battle or past sins. She couldn't stand to look at him.

"Alright," she murmured. "I'll go. I'll help."

They walked down the maze-like corridors of the Rhigar military academy, passing a long column of recruits and their officers. They moved through hallways lined with golden plaques and the grim-faced statues of the academy's founders, stone hands gripping ancient blades. Shira couldn't read the engravings or the yellow banners draped over their heads, but she was sure they had something to do with loyalty, honor, duty, patriotic love, all the noble abstractions that sent men to die in the mud.

"All Sandor would tell me about himself is that he was a healer with House Sabosen," Revan said. "He used to attend the state-sponsored medical college on Csilla before he volunteered to supervise operations on Farschi. He doesn't speak any Basic, but I don't suppose that will pose too much of a problem for you."

"I can handle it."

They reached the interrogation room doors. Revan pushed in his security code and shoved open the door.

"After you," he said in a tone of mock deference.

"Such a gentleman," Shira muttered, as she stepped through the door.

The Chiss man, Krysthan Sandor, was sitting at the table with his hands folded before him as neatly as if he were sitting down to nerf steak dinner by candlelight. He was young, his lean dark blue face composed of right angles, chiseled lines and a stark geometry of shadows. Empirically, Sandor was handsome, possessing the hollow-cheeked aristocratic features the Chiss seemed to prefer, but Shira had never seen a face that reminded her so much of HK's visor.

Fighting back her revulsion, she seated herself on Sandor's side of the table – the better to earn his trust. Revan sat down across from the witness and began the questioning again in rapid Cheun.

Sandor didn't answer. He was looking at the wooden box in Shira's hands. She drew her arms around it protectively, feeling a chill run from her finger's ends to the bottom of her spine. She should have known that any favor Revan asked of her would turn ugly, but it was too late to back out now, with what she knew.

Revan spoke again and, although she couldn't understand the language, Shira could tell he was admonishing Sandor by the way his voice rose to simulate anger.

Sandor turned away from her and gazed back at Revan, his slanted eyes as cold and precise as faceted gems. He answered in a measured tone, speaking each word at his leisure, making it clear that Revan didn't frighten him in the least.

Revan nodded. "Shira, he says that box belongs to him. He wants it back."

She lifted the lid of the box and displayed the scalpels. "Tell him that I'm interested in this box too. I found it in the Sith barracks. I'd like him to tell me what he uses these out-dated scalpels for and why he's collected all these little trophies."

She reached into the box and pulled out a necklace ornamented with blood-red stones, its long strands tangling around her fist. "Ask him who this belongs to, Revan. I'd like to know where she is and why she gave him such a generous present."

Revan stared at her. "Are you suggesting that -"

"I am. I'd stake everything on it and you know I'm not a gambler."

"But that's crazy. He's Chiss."

"It may be crazy, but it's true. That'ss why he won't give you a straight answer, Revan. It explains why he's so anxious to get these torture tools out of sight."

She glanced over at Sandor and she could swear his thin lips curved into a strange half-smile.

"He's not a Sith prisoner," she said. "He's one of them."


	6. Question Marks

_The Sith control room was dominated by a massive computer and a complicated console manned by three anxious techs. On the screen, flashing red and yellow symbols moved over a tracking grid like insects creeping over a dirty floor. The assembled officers stood in a row under the glow of the computer complex, their electrified eyes reflecting the screen like tiny screens themselves, set in pallid faces. They were speaking in their own profane tongue, a language that crawled into one's ears and seemed to infest the brain, even if the words were unknown and the meanings garbled. On the floor, there lay a lump of rags and flesh that had once been a Sith officer. The rest of the commanders seem entirely unconcerned by the fresh corpse. If the techs heeded it, it was only to avoid tripping over the deadweight in their frantic ministrations to the computer system. To the west, a long corridor coiled away, keeping its secrets. _

Shira's eyelids fluttered and she was unceremoniously dumped back into the interrogation room. It took her a moment to locate herself again, to recognize the fluorescent lamps overhead and the prisoner's face across the table. Krysthan Sandor watched her, his angular blue face revealing neither anger nor triumph.

Through their mental connection, Shira was slowly building a map of two Sith bases, but her access to his memories was limited and his mind was remarkably strong.

She typed a few notes into her datapad, feeling Sandor's red eyes upon her face, waiting, expectant. He knew that soon she would push her way back into his mind and go searching for that long western corridor, another feature of the Sith base constructed on the ashy surface of Uxturran. They had been dueling this way for nearly nine hours, a wordless inquisition without pause under the unforgiving lights of the Rhigar interrogation room.

Setting the datapad down on her lap, she invaded his mind again, seeking out the dark corridor that would lead her onward. But just as the control room began to materialize before their shared sight, she felt a stabbing pain at the front of her head and the image dissolved. She blinked, trying awaken to the interrogation room, but even with her eyes open, she couldn't make out the wooden table that separated her from the Sith torturer. They were locked in together in this room and in this trance and now he was assuming control.

_ Feet trampled over the grimy sidewalks, some pounding the pavement, some plodding, some pausing amidst the milling crowd. The odor of greasy food wafted over the street and the brassy blare of music was enough to knock a grown man to his knees.. Chiss citizens mobbed the sidewalks, their bodies almost obscuring the steady march of the passing parade. High upon a yellow float, representatives from the Ruling Families stood with garlands around their necks, accompanied by beautiful young girls draped in ivory gowns. The parade maidens smiled and reached blue arms to the skies, strewing white confetti over the jostling crowd like falling snow. _

Shira grappled against Sandor and the illusion of the Chiss cityscape dissolved into the grim grey door of a Sith base laboratory. It wasn't the place she wanted to go, not again, but it was closer.

_Through the grey door and into the laboratory. A Chiss captive scrubs dark smears of blood from a surgical table, working under the supervision of a Sith guard. Two scientists affix electrodes to a bound captive's chest, wires and tubes spreading like tentacles around the prone blue body. Jars line the metal shelves, jars full of clear fluid and samples, precious samples, organs preserved and floating under the illumination of blue light. Everything has its label, including the test subjects, who wear metal collars around their necks. The scalpel glitter of the lights, the shelves, the cold steel tables, comes slicing at one's eyes, but it is the muffled cries that linger on, the screams stifled by rags that still taste like the spit of the prisoners who suffered and screamed before. _

She tried to push back through the grey door, to move towards the center of the base, but Sandor would not allow it. He managed to wrest control from her, to shatter the glassy vision of the Sith laboratory and its row after row of gruesome jars.

_Looking down, she could see a blue hand, Sandor's hand, holding a laser scalpel. The body of a small brown vermin lay on the dissection table. Its limbs were secured with pins. At the front of the classroom, a professor gave instructions in Cheun, his spectacles slipping down on his nose as he pointed to an anatomical chart. Sandor's hand was steady as he cut a clean line across the torso, as he peeled back fur and muscle to reveal gleaming bone. The professor passed by, nodding his approval, as Sandor parted the ribs like the clasp of a locket and carefully, gently, removed a pink scrap of flesh - the motionless heart. _

She began to play pazaak in her head, if only to free herself from Sandor's hold on her mind.

_5+3=8 _

The cards burst out of the deck, blue and white, their numbers blurring before her sight, as the Chiss hostage tried to regain control of the force bond.

_8+2=10_

_10+4=14_

She dealt out another card, feeling his thoughts biting at the edge of her mind, sharp teeth eating away at her focus.

_6. _

_14+6=20_.

Her eyes jolted open and she heard herself gasp. Once again, she saw the sparse furniture of the interrogation room, the blank concrete wall and Sandor's inscrutable face.

She leaned forward on the table and flung a thought at him.

_- I'm sick of these games. I want you to cooperate. _

His answer came more quickly than she expected.

_- My apologies, but I want you to see it. All of it. I need someone to know. Please._

His hand darted across the table and caught hold of her fist.

She recoiled, pulling her hand away.

_- Don't touch me. I'm going back into your mind again, even if I have to drill my way in. This time you'll give me answers. _

She straightened up in her seat and prepared to push into his mind again. There would be no sleep until she completed the maps, until she unlocked a path through the bases and found the security systems, the barracks and the prisoners' cells. She would hurt him if she had to, to get at what he knew. It would have been easier if he'd cursed at her and struggled, but he remained polite even as she invaded his mind, even as they fought for power and even she pulled answers from him like rotten teeth.

He showed her horrible things, crimes that she knew would leave her sleepless even when she retreated to the safety of her bunk, and he gave her glimpses of his life before he defected to the Sith, a hardscrabble life in the city ghetto, long hours in the medical college, isolation on a farming backwater. He wanted her to know him, as though it might explain the atrocities he had committed against his own people – but it didn't and it never would. If anything, when she saw that he had not been born a monster, she despised him for having chosen to become one.

But more disturbing was the dawning realization that, as the force bond grew in strength, his confessions were acquiring a strange sense of purpose. He wanted to divulge everything he had done, to make her see it and feel it around her as vividly as though she had lived it. He wanted her to know it all, and when she had felt the full horror of it, he wanted something more: he wanted her to forgive him.

Atton slouched in the pilot's seat, shuffling his deck of pazaak cards from one hand to the other. The cards fluttered together in the air like a flurry of blue-and-white wings before settling back into his cool, dry palm.

Concentrating, he slowed down the motion, fanning out the cards and suspending them in mid-air so that they formed an arc between his outstretched hands.

Pazaak was the only pure thing, the one game in town that added up to something. Sure, there were tons of skifters and hustlers lurking around, but he trusted the white numbers stamped on the cards and the pleasurable certainty of arithmetic. Life, unfortunately, was not a game of pazaak and it sure as hell didn't add up to 20. If the Force was supposed to tally up good and evil, light and dark, like balances on a cosmic ledger, then he figured someone had royally messed up the math. Even when he was playing fair, the house seemed to have stacked the deck against him and just about everyone else he'd ever met.

Atton tried not to think about Prisoner 164, the woman named Tahet, or about how much Shira surely loathed him now that everything had come to light. He wanted to fix his mind on the cards floating in front of him, forming a bridge between his two hands. He focused on the deck and made the cards pirouette in the air, each moving in its own orbit, whirling quicker, quicker, fast enough to make a guy dizzy if he stared at them too hard trying to discern the numbers. He was about to fold the cards back into his hands when HK came clattering into the cockpit.

"[Observation:] Upon conducting a diagnostic, I discovered an intriguing file in my databanks. I was most surprised to find that it was about you, Meatbag, from the time prior to your name re-assignment."

The spinning procession of pazaak cards fell to pieces, showering scraps of blue-and-white cardboard all over the cockpit.

"Damn it, HK, look what you made me do!"

"[Conciliatory Declaration:] Yes, your organic ineptitude is no doubt entirely my fault and has nothing at all to do with your own clumsiness," HK intoned. "[Grudging Admission:] Yet, while you have appeared lackadaisical and uselessly merciful during our period of acquaintance, I must concede that your K-C ratio was most impressive."

Atton scanned over the navigation panel, taking an undue interest in the group of black buttons, levers and meters that controlled flight altitude. "I don't know what you're talking about. Honestly, I think you're starting to glitch out."

"[Evaluation:] I am operating in exemplary condition and will happily prove my adherence to correct protocols by slaughtering any target within range" HK answered, the merest hint of indignation creeping into his metallic voice. "[Statement:] It is exceedingly unlikely that even your fallible human memory would erase information about the Kill-Conversion ratio, the most significant statistic for determining one's continued utility to Revan and the program. According to your file, you were 16-148, surely nothing for any mere sentient to be ashamed of."

"I'm not ashamed of anything," Atton said. "Look, HK, you've got the wrong guy, alright? I get mistaken for a lot of people - mostly the charming, ruggedly handsome ones."

"[Commentary:] On the next occasion you opt to diverge from the truth, I would suggest you devise a credible lie, 'Jaq'. In any case, it is rare to encounter a sentient who participated in Revan's program. I would be pleased to compare notes on techniques. [Curious Inquiry:] What sort of methods did you prefer for breaking recalcitrant Jedi?"

Atton slumped over the navigation system, his head in his hands. "I should have known this was coming. Droids always bust in the head," he muttered. "If you're not careful, I'm gonna have to fish out the old hydrospanner and, believe me, it isn't going to be pretty."

"[Nostalgic Commentary:] I was always partial to heavy artillery myself. There can be nothing more invigorating to one's systems than a sunny afternoon in the turret room, watching the fleshy Jedi scurry back and forth until it's time to scrub up the pulpy mess," HK droned. "I must confess that I sacrificed several potential conversions in this gratifying manner."

Atton reached under his jacket and withdrew his lightsaber. The beam materialized with a vicious hiss. "I'm not kidding, HK. One more word and I start making repairs with this, instead of the hydrospanner. Now, get out of my office."

"[Patient Correction:] This is not an office, Meatbag. It is a cockpit, in a ship that does not belong to you. Thus the use of the word 'my' is also remarkably inapt."

The yellow 'saber took a lazy swipe at HK's visor, singeing the ugly grate over the droid's vocabulator unit. Atton listened as the metal feet clanked a heavy retreat across the ship's deck. The damn droid would probably wander off and confide his gory reminiscences to the hyperdrive or one of the automatic doors.

Atton knew that he shouldn't have let it get to him, but these days it was getting harder to keep his pazaak face. As distant as she was, the force bond with Shira was getting stronger and it was becoming increasingly difficult to disentangle her responses from his own.

He could feel her pain. Not in the way smarmy talk show hosts did on the afternoon holo-vids, nodding their heads sympathetically as guests recounted their tales of woe, and straining to squeeze out a few glycerine tears for the folks at home. No, he could actually feel the shock of revelation quake through her limbs, her rage, her disgust, the maddening guilt that was worst of all. Sometimes her thoughts would intrude upon his own, commercial breaks in his regularly scheduled program of studied indifference. Her nightmares invaded his stony sleep and shook him awake, leaving him dazed and bleary-eyed. It always took a few seconds to find himself again.

He used to wonder if, amidst all the killing, he'd managed to murder his conscience. At times, he'd questioned whether it had ever existed at all, if he'd always just rotated between convenient evil and self-interested apathy. He knew now that even if he had smothered his conscience, it had risen again like a vengeful spirit. It whispered to him now with a woman's voice. It was a voice that could have belonged to Shira or to Tahet, or one of the long line of people he'd tortured or cheated, lied to or abandoned. It recounted his crimes, never letting him forget who he was and what he had been. When it spoke, its words were like blood trickling from a gash, seeping through the bandages and clouding them crimson. He wondered why he'd ever wanted a conscience in the first place. It was an idiotic thing to ask for, worse than begging for a knife in the gut.

He hated his newfound conscience and he hated the force bond with Shira and he hated the fact that he still loved her, like the fool everyone thought he was, like the sucker he promised he'd never become. She was practically obligated to despise him anyway. If she was keeping up the force bond, it was probably because she wanted to torment him, to make him as miserable as she was. If he had any sense in his head, he knew that he would have turned around and flown himself back to Republic space, dumped HK on Mical or Mira, and bolted off to the nearest hole-in-the-wall cantina. But then, he'd never had any damn sense, had always been stubborn as a bantha and he figured it wasn't going to change anytime soon. He would keep on flying, keep on following the co-ordinates on Konrad's map, keep on hoping, bumbling moth-like towards a lantern fire.

Revan drummed his fingers on the boardroom table and then poured himself another cup of lanthe, the Chiss answer to caffa. It was a green liquid served lukewarm, as bland as the beige walls adorning all of the interchangeable conference rooms, but it fought off the drowsiness symptomatic of rising with Rhigar's pale sun.

The most recent meeting with Captain Otranian had not gone according to plan. The officer was pushing for fast action, especially since the Ruling Families had granted the mission three additional units of soldiers, a team of techs and use of a warship. Revan attempted to explain the importance of strategic planning, the need to glean more information about the threat, but he knew that Otranian wasn't happy about the delay.

Of course, military men rarely appreciated taking orders from Jedi, preachy ascetics wearing thread-bare robes and infuriating expressions of utter calm. Revan knew it from experience. He may have won his fellow Jedi to the wars with stirring speeches and noble rhetoric, but to earn the allegiance of soldiers, his voice had to become the clash of battle, an eloquence that sounded through cannon fire, grenade blasts and a crackling pyre of enemy bodies sending sparks up into the night. If he was going to gain the respect of these new soldiers, it would be through winning strategy, not speed and bluster. He would preserve every life he could, not simply out of vague humanitarian sentiment, but to win their loyalty, a resource more precious than skin and sinew, blood and bone.

Revan was taking another sip of lanthe when Shira burst through the door. From her scraped-back pony-tail and flushed face, it was obvious that she'd been running laps on the academy track. She was wearing yet another variation on her usual bedraggled blue robe and she looked as though she'd chosen exercise over much-needed sleep.

"You're late," he said. "I don't like to be kept waiting."

She plopped down in the chair across from him. "So? What did you want to talk about?"

"Would you care for some lanthe? It's good for what ails you."

Revan didn't wait for an answer, just poured out a cup from the kettle and set it in front of her. It was a good trick in negotiations, control masquerading as hospitality. Besides, if the purple crescents under Shira's eyes were any indication, she needed to guzzle down about a dozen cups of the stuff just to keep from slipping into a coma.

Shira picked up the cup, sloshed the liquid around a bit and took a sip.

"Lanthe, you said? This stuff isn't bad."

"It isn't precisely good either, but this is the Unknown Regions and we make do," Revan said. "I called you in because I want to know how the questioning with Sandor went. The Chiss forces are demanding action and I want to know where we stand."

"I have information for you, Revan, good information, but I need something from you first. Like I told you before, I appreciate reciprocity: a question for a question and an answer for an answer."

He drew his cup of lanthe up to his lips, hiding his grimace. He didn't like the sound of her request, which wasn't a request but a sort of extortion, the kind of thing he would have expected from a two-bit cantina rat or a Hutt moneylender, not a Jedi. Of course, she'd never been much of a Jedi. Maybe that was why he found her interesting.

"What is it?" he sighed.

"I need to you tell me what happened to a friend of mine," she said. "Did you know Tahet Ghane? She was my master back at the Enclave. I think she may have been captured by one of the agents in your conversion program. She may have been murdered. Did you order it?"

Revan paused, wondering if he could sidestep the question. The memories were hazy, as though someone had reached out and smudged them with a careless finger, and then, there had been so many prisoners, more than he could remember.

He shook his head slowly. "I can't be sure. I doubt that I would have done it. I would have hated to sacrifice a master, to lose all those valuable skills. I didn't supervise the program and frankly, the people I entrusted it to let the interrogators get out of control. Some of them had vendettas, some of them were angry and some of them just enjoyed hurting Jedi or anyone else they could get their hands on.

I do remember distributing personnel files accompanied by assassination orders on the most troublesome agents when the abuses finally came to my attention. Of course, there were problems that go along with training an elite force – if their loyalties turn, they become harder to catch and harder to kill. If your master was murdered, we may have punished the killer, but it was a chaotic time and a lot of things happened that I still can't account for."

"You don't know anything about a Prisoner #164? Do you remember the names of any of the interrogators who would have been assigned to her? It's important, Revan. I need to know."

"Look, Shira, I'm not trying to be evasive here. The truth is, I don't know about everything that happened. That one word, 'Revan,' became so much bigger than me and what I wanted to achieve. Even when I was sleeping, the gears of the mechanism were grinding around, committing acts in my name, as a result of policies set in a meeting or the way some officer interpreted one of my manuals.

"When the Jedi Council took my memory and my identity and let me hide under the name, 'Nazir Santu', it was a relief, as though a burden had been lifted for a while. I am sorry that I can't help you, but part of me is glad that I can't remember it all or I think the weight of it would crush me, would crush anyone who stood under it. You may think it's important to know, but for me, it's important not to know any more than I have to."

Shira reached across the table and touched his hand. "I know you feel guilty, Revan. I followed you to that marsh, where the force ghosts were. I found the viridian crystal you left for Alek there. What did he say to you?"

He inched his hand away from her. He didn't want her damn sympathy. He just wanted to her to stop prying, pretending as though they were here for some kind of Jedi reunion party.

"I think that's enough for today. I answered your question. Now I'd like you to debrief me on the situation with Sandor. Has he revealed anything of strategic importance? We need to have a battle plan ready. I can't stall the attack much longer."

Shira leaned back in her chair, her expression wavering between indignation and the pained, wet-eyed look of a kicked kath hound puppy. She reached under the lapel of her robe and pulled out a black datapad.

"You'll find all the information you need here. I've created maps on the two bases that Sandor showed me and I've also recorded details about the surrounding terrain."

"Good," Revan said. "How can we get around security?"

"The main entrance and most of the doors on the Uxturran base seem to open via handprint recognition. We'll need to bring Sandor with us to open the doors."

"Or Sandor's hand," Revan said.

Shira winced. "I don't think that's necessary. I'll ensure he doesn't get in the way."

"Be sure he doesn't then," Revan replied. "If he even looks at us the wrong way, I'll do what I must to preserve the integrity of our mission. If that means I have to cut the hand off his corpse and carry the bloody thing around in my pocket, so be it. You may want to pass that information on to him, just in case he decides to get any bright ideas."

Shira stood up from the table. "Well, if it comes to that, I'm glad you'll be the one carrying the amputated hand."

"Don't be squeamish," Revan muttered, already scanning over the datapad. "We're here to do the galaxy's dirty work."

"Don't I know it," Shira said. "Believe me, Revan, from what I've seen, we've got a mess to clean up."


	7. Knives Out

Revan leaned back against the craggy surface of the boulder, his eyes fixed on the nearest Sith guard tower. Looming over the barbed wire enclosure, the tower stood on stilt legs fastened together by a crisscross network of metal beams, its perch an ugly box of corrugated metal. Topped with an enormous megaphone, the tower stared down at the flat shell of the Sith base, a one-eyed monstrosity, its gawky silhouette made stark and strange by the first beams of a rising sun.

He was watching the tower window, waiting for the signal from T3 and the Chiss snipers that would let him know they were in position. If the plan was to succeed, they didn't have much time left to take the towers. Soon the buzzer would sound from all the surrounding towers, summoning the Sith troops out of the barracks for their morning training. The timing needed to be precise if they were going to use their limited resources to maximum effect. He did not savor the possibility of engaging Chiss soldiers in a hand-to-hand battle with these Sith and their 'sabers, a fight that they could not hope to win.

He shifted his position slightly, if only to give his cramped muscles a break. The morning dew was already beginning to dampen his robe, reminding him why he hated late-night stake-outs.

"Where's a Jedi army when you need one?" he sighed.

Shira stretched her legs out and gave him a sideways smile. It was hard to tell when she was being friendly and when she was having a secret joke at his expense.

"With everything that's happened, Revan, there aren't many Jedi left. The ones who survived are back in Republic space trying to pick up the pieces."

"Do you wish you were with them?"

"No," she said.

She paused for a moment, looking up at a gunmetal sky slowly fading to the dingy white of a kinrath egg.

"I mean, there are people that you miss, right? There always are. But I don't know if I ever belonged there. Nobody, not even the Jedi Council, can really make someone an exile. In the end, I chose it for myself."

Revan glanced at her pale, clear-cut profile against the jagged backdrop of the rocks. He knew that he should answer her, if only to take back a bit of her trust, but he didn't have the slightest idea what to say. He felt a supreme sense of relief when he saw T3's beam flashing from the window of the guard tower and he knew that he would not have to formulate a reply.

He prodded Shira with his elbow and pointed towards the window. "They've taken the tower. It's almost time. We need to advance."

Dusting off the back of her robe, she went around the side of the boulder to where Sandor was sleeping.

Revan clambered to his feet and scanned the horizon. Everything looked clear enough, but he didn't like surprises unless he was springing them on an enemy.

He was so wrapped up in his surveillance that Shira's voice was almost enough to startle him.

"Revan? I thought you should know - I gave Sandor a vibroblade. He's going to need something to defend himself with out there."

He turned and saw Sandor's red eyes gleaming behind her, his blue face almost black in the half-light.

"You gave him a knife to stick in your back? I don't like it. We'd be better off leaving him to the mercy of his Sith friends. Let him see how friendly they really are."

"I told you, I'll handle it. We're going to need him."

"For now," Revan said. "Don't get too attached."

He turned to Sandor and tossed off a few choice words in Cheun before they high-tailed it towards the base, insults that he was grateful only he and the prisoner could understand. It wouldn't bother him in the least to see this torturer get skewered by a Sith blade – he'd seen thousands of better men die. Force, he'd killed them some of them himself and he carried their deaths inside of him like rocks in his stomach. Shira could keep her Force bonds and her bleeding heart, but he wasn't going to compromise the mission so some cowardly murderer could clutch at her robes and protect his own worthless life.

"What did you say to him?" Shira whispered.

"I told him that I'd be watching him," Revan said.

It wasn't technically a lie.

Atton rolled over in the narrow bunk, pulling the covers more tightly around his head so that the fabric almost managed to block out the noise of HK pacing, back and forth, back and forth over the floor outside, stalking imaginary Jedi through the ship's corridors. Every once in a while, he could even hear the droid purring little affirmations to himself as though he was sizing up a kill with gleaming-eyed satisfaction.

He had a feeling he was going to have to finally make use of that dreaded hydrospanner. But not tonight. Tomorrow.

He was still feeling pretty woozy from smoking the dregs of Mira's old spice stash and so even if he couldn't quite get to sleep, he couldn't quite peel himself out of bed either. He shut his eyes, huddled under the blankets and tried to think of something nice, something distracting enough to shut out the ceaseless clank-clank-clank of HK's feet against the deck.

Damn droid. Stupid droid. Tomorrow he'd deal with him.

They charged onto the base grounds amidst the fire of laser cannons, the bone-splintering impact of grenades and scattered shrapnel, sniper shots slicing through cold morning air suddenly so thick with curses, shouts, dying gasps.

Shira whirled her saber around, its violet beam deflecting the onslaught of turret fire from the base rooftops. With the Force behind her, her body sped through the instinctive movements, charged with a divine velocity that exceeded the strength of her arms or the power of her legs.

_Behind you! _

Sandor's voice in her mind. She spun around, just managing to dodge the Force pike thrust at her back.

Seeing her blade, the hooded Sith trooper pulled back and put up a defense with the pike. He was panting hard under the black fabric shrouding his face.

She flicked her hand forward and felt the Force gust through the air, knocking the heavy body down into the muddy grass. She let Sandor finish the job with a few strokes of the vibroblade.

More Sith underlings came running, trampling down the bodies of their wounded and their dead as they came. Even amidst the rattle of the turrets and the sharp hiss of 'sabers, it was possible to hear the sickening crunch of bone under black boots.

She fought hard, maneuvering herself around Sandor so that he faced the slavering guard hounds rather than the quick beams of Sith officers or the Force pikes of the lesser soldiers. The hounds were challenging enough, hulking white beasts that lunged forward gnashing their teeth and whisking barbed tails like scythes.

Each time one of them managed to wound Sandor, she could feel the teeth tearing at her own skin and she could hear his silent cursing, the babbling panic that comes when you are staring down death for the first time. She had forgotten that feeling a long time ago and she didn't like to be reminded.

Lightning rippled across the battlefield and green clouds of poison gas hung in the air, a toxic haze that made every face look as though it was in the first stages of decay.

She caught glimpses of Revan as they wended through the maze of thrashing bodies, the grassy battlefield turning into a pit of mud under their feet. The Force was always at his finger's ends and he wielded it as a devastating weapon. Sparks danced over his palms and then crackled over the field in a bolt of blue lightning. He knocked opponents over as though they were flimsy pazaak cards scattering left and right and then choked the life out of them.

They met at the heavy double doors of the Uxturran base.

"That didn't go too badly," Revan said.

Shira turned back, evaluating the heaped bodies on the battlefield. "Well, we made it this far anyway."

Revan smiled and shook his head as if to admonish her. He grabbed hold of Sandor's arm, almost wrenching it out of the socket, and pressed the Chiss prisoner's hand into the handprint recognition detector set in the door.

Shira rubbed her own arm defensively, even though she knew the pain was only a product of the force bond. "Force, Revan, do you mind?"

"What?"

He didn't get it.

She heard Sandor voice a protest to Revan in quiet Cheun, but she couldn't decipher the thought behind the words.

Revan just gave a bone-dry chuckle, pushing Sandor's hand deeper into the detection device as the lights around it flashed red. "Did you hear that? Did you hear what he said?"

"No," Shira sighed. "He can shut me out sometimes."

"The Chiss murderer just informed me that I hurt him," Revan said. "Poor guy, I guess he'll have a bruise. I'll be interested to see if a Chiss can turn black and blue."

"You did hurt him. You hurt me too. When he's in pain, I can feel it through the bond. So watch it."

Revan's energy shield cast tints of gold and infernal red across his impassive face.

"Alright. Sorry. I didn't know. I realize I'm not the paragon of Jedi virtue. Call it pragmatism."

"I saw you Force-choking those Sith," she said. "I just hope you're being careful."

"You have to fight fire with fire sometimes. I promise you, I'm watching myself."

The light circling the detector turned green and the base doors began to slide open.

Atton awoke to the darkened dormitory, unsure of how long he had been sleeping. He breathed a sigh and brushed the hair back from his sweaty forehead, hunger squirming through his stomach.

That's the big problem with smoking spice in space, he thought. When the inevitable appetite for greasy cantina fare rumbled in, you could be sure that all you'd have to eat was canned, dehydrated or made of paste.

He could have sworn HK clanked in to 'check' on him while he was half-asleep, but that could be a side-effect of the spice too. After all, he was pretty sure that he'd locked the door and he didn't see any assassin droid-shaped holes blasted into the metal wall.

It was probably just his imagination playing tricks on him, although he liked to believe his subconscious could come up with better material than a vision of HK informing him about the dangers of recreational spice use.

Atton leaned over the side of the bunk, his hand feeling for clothes strewn on the floor. When his fingers connected with them, he was surprised to find that they weren't the usual wrinkled heap of cloth and leather, but a neat, folded pile.

Creepy. It was like somebody's mother had come to visit. In his experience, tidiness was definitely not a side-effect of spice use.

His belt lay atop the pile, with both blasters carefully tucked in their holsters. He tugged on the black leather belt and it snaked out along the floor. It didn't weigh as much as it should have, but it took him a second or two to realize that the loop at the end was empty. Frack.

He tore through the folded pile, cursing under his breath. He searched the beat-up jacket, the faded white shirt, shaking each item of clothing as though he could rough it up and force it to give evidence.

It wasn't there. But it had been there when he went to sleep. He felt a sense of foreboding, a numbness spreading through his hands and feet.

His lightsaber was gone.

Revan hobbled forward, favoring his right leg. The Sith blade had made a long gash down his left thigh, severing muscle from bone. Shira's attempts to heal him with the Force were proving just enough to keep him on his feet.

"There's a central chamber just ahead," Shira said. "The control room, the barracks and the prison cells branch off from there."

He nodded. "Then that's where the last real resistance will converge. They're getting desperate."

"Be careful, Rev. We're getting desperate too. Want me to try and heal you again?"

"This is the best we're going to do right now. Let's press forward."

The adrenalin would keep him going. He managed a limping jog behind Shira and Sandor, passing under a high-arched door into the central chamber.

A tall figure stood in the center of the candle-lit room. She faced away from them, seeming to contemplate the enormous throne before her. A long braid of hair trailed down her back, the strands alternating between black and white. She cast a long shadow over the crimson rug.

"[So you come,]" she said in sibilant Cheun. "[You have purged the lesser ones, but the loss of the weak lackeys and diseased underlings cannot trouble me. You will die before you take my seat]"

The woman turned, revealing features that had once been lovely, queenly, but were now a determined mockery of beauty. Pale scars knifed across her face and the flesh of her cheeks was pierced and threaded with silver chains. Set deep in their sockets, her mismatched eyes gleamed even in the dark, one a vortex of dark blue, the other a rusty brown. Her mouth was like a fresh bruise.

It took Revan an instant to fight back the horror of that leering face and find the words to answer her. "[Your worthless throne? After you die, we'll break it into rubble.]"

From the corner of his eye, he could see Shira leap forward, her 'saber poised to sever the woman's head from that impossibly tall body draped in shapeless red cloth.

The violet 'saber swung through the air but just as it was about to connect with that withered neck, it stopped short.

Shira hung in the air for a moment, transfixed, seeming to dangle like a puppet on a string, and then the spell broke and she was hurled backwards, almost colliding into Sandor.

The Sith woman's elongated shadow extended even further across the red carpet. The black streaks seeped out of her braided hair and her blue left eye faded to a rusty brown.

Suddenly, her shadow stood up, another body clothed in a long black robe. Atop the tall body, a mirror-image face floated like a scarred moon, cheeks threaded with gold chain, dark blue eyes embedded in those deep sockets.

The Sith woman smiled at her shadow and the shadow smiled back.

"[I am Duenia the Divided One,]" she laughed with two sets of mouths. "[You will find us difficult to kill.]"

Revan took on the white-haired Duenia, while Shira and Sandor fought her shadowy twin. The pain in his leg plagued him as he ducked and dodged Duenia's Force attacks, as he leveled his own, the room vibrating with the clash of their powers. There was no time to heal the wound amidst the flicker and flash of lightsaber beams.

Duenia's double-bladed 'saber spun towards him but he managed to parry the attack, using his superior strength to push her backward. She attacked again, a vicious stroke, and this time he felt the saber sear across his shoulder.

Lightning sparked on his fingertips, crackled down his palm and then blazed out at his opponent. The electricity wasn't enough to cause Duenia much harm, but it shielded him for a moment, long enough to collect himself.

He glimpsed Shira pressing forward against Duenia the Black, the violet whirl of her blade distracting the Sith woman from Sandor and his vibroblade. The Chiss prisoner crept behind the dark woman, flanking her.

He'd almost forgotten that Shira had a secret weapon too, another body that she could use as a puppet in this fight. He backed away from Duenia the White, concentrating on the Force crashing against his body like waves, an infinite sea encompassing every body, every mind, all things seen and unseen. He would make this power do his biding.

Pale braids flying, Duenia seemed to float across the floor. There was a look of wicked triumph on her face.

"[What? You run so soon? You cannot face me and yet you would challenge Asmortis? Fool!]"

Both of Duenia's mouths screamed as Sandor plunged the vibroblade into Duenia the Black's spine. Shira's lightsaber stabbed into her chest, burning deep into the flesh.

Writhing in pain at her twin's death, Duenia the White lunged at Revan with her lightsaber, the blade slashing through the air.

She didn't move fast enough. Using the Force, Revan pushed the black throne forward. The heavy stone chair toppled onto her tall form and hit the floor so hard that it cracked the stone tiles underneath.

Blood seeped into the carpet, pooled in the interstices between the grey stones and dyed the Sith's white hair a lurid pinkish red.

"I told you I'd break that throne," Revan said.

Shira bent forward, resting her hands on her knees as she caught her breath. "Tough fight. Are you okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine," he said, grinning at her. "Since when did you start caring so much?"

"You look terrible. Your leg is a mess. You're going to have one hell of a scar."

He looked down at the wound. It was particularly ugly by candlelight.

"It happens. A little souvenir from Uxturran, I guess."

"The prison cells are just west of here. I'll go on alone," she said. "I need you to get on the comm.-link and order some back-up. Try to get ground troops and anyone with medical training. From what I've seen, any survivors we find are going to need immediate attention."

He stared at her, the pain in his leg getting worse by the minute. Since when was she the one giving the orders around here?

"I don't think you should go in alone. You don't even know Cheun."

"I can handle it. I know what I'm facing. You're hurt, Rev, and truthfully, you're not going to want to see this. The things they did to those people – like you said before, there are some things people are better off not knowing. Just get Otranian to send in some back-up and let Sandor take care of your leg."

She didn't wait for an answer, just ran off towards the west corridor. It was as though she'd borrowed a page from his playbook and appointed herself leader. He didn't like it, even if she was trying to spare him. In the end, the apprentice always wants to usurp the master's place, he thought. The old Revan had mutilated his closest advisors and unhinged Malak's jaw for even the slightest hint of insubordination. The new and improved Revan might be a touch friendlier, but he still didn't like to share power.

Revan limped over to the pedestral where the throne had once stood and sat down on the cold stones. He eyed Sandor warily as the former healer ripped cloth from the bottom of his tunic and began to dress the wound.

"[Don't start thinking that because you've helped us you're going to get off lightly,]" Revan said. "[I don't know what you did to those prisoners yet, but I'm going to collect the details. I'm going to make sure you pay.]"

Sandor didn't look up from his work. "[On the planet I come from, we have a saying: 'Everyone pays in the end, but you don't always see the money change hands.' Your religion – the Force, you call it – it is supposed to balance all things, is it not?]"

"[You don't know anything about the Force.]"

The makeshift bandage wrapped tightly around Revan's leg, covering the searing red of the wound.

"[Perhaps not, but I do know that if you hurt me, your friend will feel the pain. She's trusting you to behave yourself. Besides, without my help, you cannot enter the Xendrin base, where Asmortis rules the last of his kind.]"

"[And what do you know of Asmortis? Probably nothing at all. You're too far down the chain of command to have seen a Sith Lord.]"

Sandor snickered and finished tying off the bandage.

"[I know enough to ensure my life is still valuable and I am wise enough to hold my tongue. That will have to be good enough for you, although I admire your efforts to wound my pride and make me talk. Very clever. Not so effective as your woman friend's tactics, but we all have our own talents.]"

Revan tugged lightly at the bandage. The cloth held firm. It wasn't Force healing but it was good - it would keep the muscle together and the dirt out of the wound.

He scowled, displeased by the Chiss killer's usefulness.

"[Tell me, what's your talent, Sandor? Other than murder and betrayal?]"

Sandor chuckled, his gaunt face somehow becoming even narrower when he smiled.

"[I make good bandages. Even for my enemy.]"

Shira opened the cell door, a narrow slat of light from the corridor widening to reveal the outlines of huddled bodies and the glimmer of fearful red eyes. Someone was crying in the darkness.

She stepped into the room, choking back the stench of bodies, living, dying and dead, crammed into a steel box.

Her Cheun was still limited, but she'd picked up a few words through the force bond with Sandor. She just hoped it would be enough to calm the prisoners. Otranian's team would arrive soon enough.

"[Hello,]" she said. "[Rescue here. No Sith.]"

An emaciated woman struggled to her feet, her hands clutching at the walls, her bony knees shaking. They had starved her so that her ribs rippled through her dark blue skin, but when she rose, she spoke in low, mellifluous voice, a voice that seemed to belong to a singer rather than to a prisoner in rusted shackles.

The survivors began to rise, to disentangle themselves from the dead. Some of them were maimed, some burned and some seem to stare beyond Shira as if they couldn't see her standing in that open doorway, as though they would always be locked inside the enormous metal coffin the Sith had built for them.

The sobs from the corner became louder, more insistent. Shira crept towards the Chiss prisoner, watching where she stepped.

The Chiss man's frame was wracked with grief as he rocked a small doll-like body in frail arms. He was young, but he already had the face and the body of an old man. His head was bald except for a few feathery tufts of hair near the top of his skull. He stared down at the dead child, whispering to it and muttering to himself.

"[Help here.]" Shira said, suddenly feeling helpless.

She crouched down and tried to get the man's attention.

"[Help you.]"

Her Cheun was dreadful, a blunt instrument, but even if she were as fluent as Revan, Shira didn't know if she could have been any more articulate in this situation.

The man looked up at her, blinking into the light

"[No help,]" he said. "[I will stay.]"

She sat down beside him and tried to Force-heal him as best she could, but it didn't work. He kept resisting her attempts, still clutching the small body in his arms, cradling the child's head in his hands. He refused to let her comfort him. She could only hope the Chiss medical officers would fare better.

It wasn't long before Otranian's soldiers swept into the room and took control of the situation, loading wounded prisoners onto stretchers, deciding who needed immediate medical attention and who could wait for care.

Shira helped them to lift some of prisoners onto stretchers and offered what Force-healing as she could, but without knowing Cheun, she knew there wasn't much more she could do.

She went back and sat down beside the Chiss man, leaning back against the cold metal wall. She stayed with him and they both waited, as still and as silent as two stones, until soldiers came to take the man away, laying him and the small body of his son on the same stretcher.

It was difficult to trust in the Force, to put her faith in something so exquisite and unfathomable in the midst of the ugliness that seemed to be closing in upon them all. Shira sat in the dark for a little while longer, as the room emptied out, as soldiers marched through the corridors outside, as the rescued prisoners cried out their relief and their horror. She wondered what Tahet would have wanted her to do.


	8. For Whom the Bell Tolls

Atton managed to land _The Direstar_ on a flat stretch of black rock on the planet's surface. It was just as Konrad had described it. The small world was a barren place composed almost entirely of onyx and volcanic rocks, its surface dark and glassy under the ship's lights.

Atton turned off the engines and started an environmental scan. It would be nice to know if the air was breathable before he decided to head out and take a stroll.

He tried to avoid thinking about the Force too much, if only because he hadn't quite accepted the idea of being a Jedi and doing all the things he'd once despised. Nevertheless, sometimes the premonitions were just too strong and he couldn't help but listen to them. He could sense something out there, in that vast galactic night, something dangerous.

"[Statement:] You have been noticeably silent lately, Meatbag. [Concerned Query:] Has a tech interfered with your vocabulator?"

Atton stared out at the darkened planet. The ship's floodlights illuminated a few distant craters and a range of ashy hills, a veritable wasteland.

"Shhh. My Jedi senses are tingling," he smirked. "There's definitely something going on here."

"[Commentary:] It will be pleasant to explore outside the ship. I have been practicing my enemy elimination protocols most diligently. I trust that we will have occasion to blast some fleshy targets?"

Atton spun around in his seat. He wasn't going to say it outright, but he didn't trust the heap of junk.

"You aren't invited. Stay here. I don't want you getting in the way."

"[Cautionary:] It is always advisable to bring along a valuable assassination model like myself. Especially since your primitive Jedi weapon has recently been misplaced."

"What?" Atton glared at the droid. "Where did you get that idea? I never told you about the missing lightsaber."

HK paused, his gawky body stiffening as though he needed to recalibrate his systems. His eyes flashed twice, flickering from bright yellow to dull amber before returning to their usual malevolent golden glow.

"[Correction:] I regret the system error. I simply meant to explain that you cannot rely on Jedi weaponry alone. It is very easy to put down a lightsaber and have it just disappear somewhere, perhaps down the trash compactor or out of the airlock, to some place where no organic will ever find it again. In comparison, a sturdy and highly functional droid model is notably more difficult to dispose of."

Atton made a mental note to check the trash compactor before he left the ship.

"Sure, HK, I get it. But that's why I need you to stay and guard the place. Chances are, anyone out looking for a fight will see the ship and come try to hijack it before they ever catch me skulking around. If they try anything funny, I'm going to want you here to blast them. I'm relying on you for that."

Sometimes he was so good at lying, he even surprised himself. Not that it seemed to fool HK too much. The droid almost managed to look depressed, which was no mean feat since he was carrying a blaster carbine with enough juice to blow a small village of Wookiees back to the Shadowlands.

Atton was itching to get off the ship, even if it meant wandering around in some black abyss searching for a pair of loony Jedi. Not that he knew what he'd do if he actually found them out there. What in the hell was a guy supposed to say to his former boss, the genocidal dictator who probably saved the whole fracking Republic? And exactly what verbal wizardry was he going to conjure up to placate an angry ex-girlfriend who was disturbingly talented with a lightsaber?

He could just imagine his introductory patter:

_"Um, hello, folks, just happened to be in the neighborhood. Small galaxy, isn't it? Hey, don't let me interrupt anything. You go ahead and finish gutting that Sith. When you're done maybe we can talk over old times, play a few games of pazaak. Republic Senate Rules, of course. And deck of your choice too. Or, uh, yeah, you can just keep killing Sith. Whatever works for you." _

There weren't a lot of etiquette books or electronic greeting cards covering this particular social situation and for once, he almost wished Mical was around. Good ol' Blondie would make some fancy little bow, maybe do a couple curtseys, and everything would be forgiven. Either that, or Revan would cut him into little bite-sized pieces and forget all about the friendly Sith defector standing well out of range of the blood spatter. Win-win scenario.

He was so lost in his thoughts that he almost forgot to switch off the trash compactor. He wasn't looking forward to mucking around in that mess searching for his lightsaber, but he supposed it was all in a day's work for the galaxy's unluckiest Jedi impersonator.

Revan unscrewed the cap of the bottle and poured himself a glass of Purple Paxa.

It was good to be back on the _Ebon Hawk_, even if they were cruising towards a Sith hellhole with a Chiss murderer in tow.

The cloaked warship behind them was laden with enough bombs to blow up a small planet. This was also good, because blowing up a small planet was exactly what he planned to do.

He raised his glass in a toast to no one in particular and took a drink, enjoying the way the drink scorched the top of his mouth. He'd become so accustomed to its bitter aftertaste that it was reassuring, almost pleasant, when it arrived - a promise kept.

Shira sat curled up in a chair, reading with more focus and intensity than Revan thought any datapad merited. She still hadn't cured herself of the unsightly habit of biting her fingernails. If she was forced to sit still for any length of time and she thought no one was watching, she'd begin gnawing away. Revan was surprised Kreia had been able to stand it – it took all of his self-discipline not to stand up and yell at her whenever he caught her at it.

He wondered if it was possible for someone to fall to the dark side simply out of annoyance. Living at close quarters, it was almost inevitable that they'd get on each other's nerves. Shira spent half her time wandering around in a daydream, toying with the silver chain around her neck and humming some old Twisted Rancor song that he hadn't liked even when it was popular. Three days ago he had decided that if he ever discovered where she hung that raggedy blue robe of hers out to dry, it was going to meet an unfortunate accident.

Of course, he changed the temperature in the cockpit on a whim and had been known to lock himself in the 'fresher for up to an hour at a time (it was where he did his best thinking) but he tended to think he was the better shipmate. Shira could be perfectly companionable at times, but then her mood would shift and attempting to have a conversation would be like tap-dancing through a mine-field. She practically burst into tears, for example, when he tried to re-arrange items in the garage to cover up the electrical burns on the floor. It certainly didn't help when he reminded her that the Hawk had been his ship first and that, under his care, it had been much better maintained.

At the moment, he figured he'd try the friendly approach, if only because booting her out of the airlock wasn't a viable option and she didn't respond well to threats.

"You want a drink? It's Purple Paxa."

Shira looked up from her datapad. "No, thanks. I don't drink."

Grinning, he shook the bottle from side to side and watched the purple liquid bubble and foam. "How very Jedi of you. They obviously kicked the wrong person out of the Order."

"It has nothing to do with being a Jedi. I just gave all of that up a while ago."

He arched an eyebrow. "With no reason at all? Hmm. A trifle masochistic, I think. Well, I guess that means more for me."

She watched him drain his glass, her green eyes wide and apprehensive.

Every once in a while, he'd look at her and see the precocious teenager she'd been before the wars had claimed her. She still possessed aspects of that sad, brave, childish self, a vulnerability left unarmored in spite of everything they had seen and done. He wasn't sure if it was something to envy or to pity.

"Revan?"

"What?"

"This bombing plan - I'll admit, it concerns me. If we succeed, I know it will be a huge blow to the Sith threat. I realize there are no civilians there. I'm aware that it's a practical solution. But we'll still be destroying a planet, a place with an eco-system and living organisms. It's very close to…I don't think have to tell you what it's close to. I'm going to have some trouble with that."

"So you're saying you want to go back on this? It's too late, Shira."

He picked up the bottle and poured himself a second drink.

"That's not what I mean," she said. "I'm simply saying that it's difficult. That I have some qualms about it."

"It's necessary. It's going to save lives. I'm not going to send Chiss soldiers in to combat these Sith if I can help it. We blow up the Xendrin base and we save ourselves a lot of trouble fighting their troops or that dreaded 'Asmortis', whatever the hell he is. Be rational about it. It isn't Malachor. We're not making those sacrifices again. If anything, we're doing the opposite."

"You're probably right, Rev," she sighed. "But that doesn't mean I have to feel good about it."

"You sure you don't want a drink?"

"Pass me that bottle." Her arm reached for it, fingers outspread.

"What?" he chuckled. "You give up so easily now? You always were a funny girl."

Revan handed the bottle to her and then took out the extra glass, one he'd put aside especially for her. His surprise was feigned. He knew she'd want the drink eventually.

She poured out two fingers of Paxa. "I just reconsidered it. I had a reason when I gave it up and it was a good one. I don't have that reason anymore."

"Well, a toast then?" he proposed.

She nodded.

"To exile and the Unknown Regions!" he said. "To leaving all our reasons to stay and, maybe even our reason, behind!"

"I'll pretend that last toast wasn't a jab at me," she smirked. "Cheers, Rev. To us. To the exiles."

They clinked glasses and drank.

Atton strolled along the black surface of the unknown planet, humming a little number by the Twisted Rancor Trio. It was a catchy tune even if he didn't remember any of the words. Oh well, the lyrics were probably just the usual steaming heap of bantha poodoo anyway – some doll-faced singer crooning about how love solved all her problems and gave her a reason for living.

If love was so great, he reasoned, the Powers That Be wouldn't have needed to come up with juma.

Atton kicked a rock out of his path. It skipped over the dark earth and then slid down a steep crater to his right. He found another piece of rubble and booted it hard. It made a graceful arc through the air, hit the ground and then rolled out of sight.

He still hadn't managed to track down his lost lightsaber, which made him cranky as all hell. He'd liked that yellow 'saber, liked it a lot, even if he wasn't too fond of being mistaken for a Jedi. It had felt good to build it, to select the crystals with Shira's help and graft them into place, even if he had exasperated Bao with the clutter he left in the garage. In the end, that 'saber had become one of the few things that really belonged to him, something that nobody else had a claim on, that no one could wrench out of his hands. Until now, anyway. But he'd get it back somehow. He'd bide his time and catch HK off guard, find a way to make the droid give it up.

The air was dusty, barely breathable, so it took him some time and a whole lot of squinting to make out the structure amidst the haze. At first, it just looked like a series of scratches across the horizon.

It was only when he came closer that he realized it was a huge black gate. He couldn't make out what was caged inside, but if he craned his head back, he could see a tall obelisk jutting skywards, sharpening its dagger-point against clouds of ash.

In front of the black gate, someone had mounted an enormous bell, deep-throated and bronze. It hung, still and heavy, from a series of ropes that trailed down into the dirt and lay in snake-like coils.

There were inscriptions engraved on the archway above the bell, but Atton couldn't understand any of them. They just looked like a bunch of weird etchings and squiggles, something a kid might graffiti on an old cargo container back in the Shad.

He looked around, scanning the area, but it seemed as though the coast was clear. It couldn't hurt to try. He grabbed hold of the rope and pulled it hard, swinging the heavy bell back and forth. Its tolling reverberated over the landscape, a sonorous voice mourning the barrenness that surrounded it and shaking the sky with its grief.

Nothing happened.

Atton chuckled, the bell still booming in his ears. He'd always been one of those people who had trouble resisting the urge to poke a red button or pull a forbidden lever. Teaching himself to fly had tamed the impulse, but it was still nice to indulge the whim once in a while.

It took Atton a few more seconds before he glimpsed the small, squat figure walking towards him, moving steadily over the black rubble. It didn't look like a threat. Hell, it didn't look like anything he'd ever seen before, neither human nor alien, Jedi nor Sith.

As it moved closer, it gestured a greeting with tiny paw-like hands, its wizened face slowly configuring itself into a tight-lipped smile. Atton couldn't tell if it was male or female, but it was short, shriveled like a piece of fruit left out in the sun. The body underneath its hooded red robe was indistinct, but it seemed to have two legs, two arms and a twisted question mark of a back.

The little creature gazed up at him with shiny black eyes, tilting its head slightly as if it was still listening to the echo of the bell.

"You rang?" it said. "How nice of you to visit."

"Uh, no problem. I'm guessing you don't get many tourists out here?"

"Not so many guests, no," the puny creature chuckled. "It's strange. One would imagine that seeing the True Sith in the flesh would be quite an attraction. Perhaps they're afraid. Perhaps they are right to be."

Atton guffawed. "You gotta be kidding me. Look, I've met Sith before. They're usually over four feet tall."

"Ah, but were they _True_ Sith? That is the more compelling question."

Atton laughed so hard and so long that he ended up doubled over, gasping and wheezing. "Oh, sweet Force! Oh, I don't think I can take it. Oh, that's priceless! Do you know Shira and Revan? Please don't tell me you've met them yet. I really gotta see their faces when they hear this."

The 'True Sith', if that's what he was, looked unimpressed by this display.

"You're beginning to bore me. I hope you don't plan to insult my people further by continuing to compare us to those pretenders who dwell in your shabby Republic. They are stupid brutes and a depressing waste of flesh. But the will of the Force be done," he sighed. "They serve their lesser purpose."

"Hey buddy, don't get me wrong or anything. You 'True Sith' are actually pretty cute. If my Jedi friends saw you, I'll bet they'd think you guys would make great pets."

Atton just managed to cap off the punch-line before he realize he was slowly being levitated above the ground. He tried to push himself back down using the Force, but the True Sith's will was much too strong. He felt his body tugged upward against gravity, as though it was being stretched out on the rack.

"Whoa, okay. I get it. I went a little too far. I crossed the line. Put me down."

"My sincerest apologies, friend, but you've exhausted my patience," the hooded creature said. "Do not worry. There is no need to fear me. I do this only to show you what is true. I promise it will only hurt a little."

When the pain hit him, Atton wasn't sure if it was his voice or simply his mind screaming out, whether his arms were flailing in panic or if the muscles just twitched in spasms of agony. He knew that losing consciousness would be a mercy and yet all his instincts, every nerve in his body, fought against it. It took him a while to black out and when he finally did, he couldn't appreciate the blessed release.

The Ebon Hawk moved into orbit around Xendrin. It was a lush green planet warmed by a pair of red giants, two stars slowly dying, feeding off one another's waning light.

It comforted Revan to think that the planet was going to die anyway when the giants collapsed under their own weight, fires extinguished. That event was probably a million years into the future, but he liked to look at the big picture. In the big picture, even a bombing became such a miniscule thing, a piece of colored glass in the mosaic.

Shira couldn't see the big picture and that was why he slipped the powder into her Paxa. She usually checked her drinks for any "added" ingredients but this time, for some reason, she'd trusted him. Maybe she knew it was for her own good. She'd sleep for eight hours and by the time she woke up with a splitting headache and maybe a bit of nausea, Xendrin would be space dust. With Sandor locked up in the med bay and Shira knocked out in the dorm, it was up to him and T3 to pilot the ship and direct the Chiss bombers.

The little droid whirred around the cockpit, chirping happily in droidspeak. T3 still wasn't much of a conversationalist, but he was just the sort of company Revan needed: friendly, compliant and pleasantly unfazed by even his wildest schemes.

Otranian's voice came in over the comm.-link. "[Sir, we're preparing to drop the Baby Blue.]"

That was the name the soldiers had given to the smallest bomb. There were three of them, a dangerous little family, Baby, Mama and Papa Blue, all lined up in a row.

"[How long will it be?]"

"[Approximately eight minutes to get into the first position.]"

"[Sounds good.]"

Revan looked down at the radar. Bad news. A scattering of red dots creeping their way across the screen. The cloaking devices might allow his team to escape detection, but he still didn't like the unexpected presence of a Sith fleet.

"[Otranian? We've got company.]"

"[I just received word. We'll wait it out and see if they spot us, but if the Sith get too close, we'll have to engage. The ship right now is highly vulnerable. We can't risk -] "

"[I understand that, Captain,]" Revan interrupted. "[Do what you must, but try to avoid compromising our position.]"

"[Yes, sir.]"

On the radar, the red dots veered closer. From his position, Revan still couldn't see the enemy ships themselves, but he knew they were approaching.

He pulled out of orbit and flew back into the shadow of a nearby moon. If something happened, he wanted at least partial cover.

There was nothing the Hawk could do in a battle like this. The small freighter was unparalleled for its speed and maneuverability, making it ideal for reconnaissance, but its single turret wouldn't do much damage against the kind of ships these Sith flew.

Revan kept his eyes trained on the radar screen, all too aware that the red dots were converging around the warship. He got back on the comm. link.

"[Captain, I've pulled back out of Xendrin's orbit. What's the situation on your side?]"

Otranian sounded tense. His voice was hoarse, but it didn't quaver. "[They're getting very close. I believe we may have been detected. I've given the signal to engage.]"

Revan swallowed hard. "[Alright. If you have Baby prepared, drop her. At this point, we have to take the chance, whether we hit our primary target or not.]"

"[We'll try our best, sir.]"

"[You're a good officer and your men are good soldiers. I know that you will fight as well and as bravely as anyone in your Ascendancy could wish. No matter what happens, we will find a way to rid the galaxy of these Sith.]"

"[Th-]"

Otranian's reply was lost in static.

Revan looked out the window but he couldn't make out the battle, only sensing the tumultuous feelings it provoked. The Force gathered around him like the chill that comes before a storm, a sharp scent in the air that jolts a man awake and makes him aware that the wind is shaking down the trees.

He knew he should stay back, but he hated to be so far out of things, so useless and out of touch. He edged the ship out of the moon's shadow, closer to Xendrin's orbit.

The explosion was silent, but no less horrible for that. It began as a glaring red eye and then flattened out into a long line and rippled towards the Ebon Hawk in a tide of fire. The ship shook, riding the crest of the wave.

As they plummeted through the atmosphere, Revan concentrated on the Force, steering the ship and working to slow their descent. He braced himself for a fiery death or a hard crash onto Xendrin's surface


	9. The Black Gates

The first thing Revan saw was a beetle skittering over a luxuriant landscape of leaves. The beetle's iridescent shell cracked open, revealing two gossamer wings. They twitched in the warm afternoon light, gave a quick flutter, and then, quite suddenly, the insect buzzed up into the air.

He groaned and tried to straighten his body out. His fingers reached back to the nape of his neck, prodding at vertebrae through the skin. It hurt to move, but it was just an effect of the aftershock – nothing too serious. He'd managed to maintain control over the ship until the very last second, when the _Ebon Hawk_ had crashed into a jungle canopy on the surface of Xendrin.

"Revan? What happened? Either we crashed or I had one hell of a nightmare."

Revan eased himself up out of the pilot's seat. "It wasn't your overactive imagination, Shira. We crashed, just moments after our warship exploded. The only good news is that it took the Sith fleet with it."

Shira sighed, rubbing her head. "Frack, I'm sorry. I should have been there to help. I didn't realize I was such a light-weight. One glass of that Chiss stuff and I was gone. My head's still pretty scrambled."

She stooped down and managed to turn T3 right side up. The little droid had been dented in the crash and it made him appear comically lopsided.

"Memeeeep!" T3 protested. His head spun around, lights flashing, like an emergency signal.

"Okay, okay, you're going to be alright," Shira muttered. "No need to be so dramatic."

"Did you get a chance to check out the hyperdrive?"

"No, I went to look in on Sandor in the med bay. When you said you'd locked him in there, I didn't realize that you'd strapped him to a gurney." She gave him a sardonic smile. "I'm not going to pretend your intentions were good, but you probably saved his life."

"Hm. How unfortunate. I would rather hear good news about the hyperdrive."

When Revan finally laid eyes on the hyperdrive, he realized they were in trouble. It would take at least three days to repair. With T3's help, he might be able to manage the job.

Shira and Sandor were able to pry open an escape hatch and they began a slow descent to the ground beneath the canopy.

The jungle swarmed in upon them, brash, serrated leaves and thick, strangling vines, a desperate entanglement of branches thrust out like the arms of lovers.

Red ants danced so quickly over the trees that they appeared to be droplets of blood trickling over the bark and creeping across Shira's pale hands. They tickled her skin and made her wary of being stung, but one look down to the ground was enough to remind her that she didn't have the luxury of being squeamish.

When her feet finally touched solid ground, she found Sandor waiting for her, a bemused expression on his face.

_It's an unpleasant situation in every respect. There will be troops looking for us. They miss nothing._

Hearing his voice in her mind had stopped being a surprise. She tossed off an answer without thinking twice.

_Let's worry about that when it comes. For now, we should set up camp, make a fire and see what we can salvage. _

Sandor shook his head, shadows pooling around his eyes and carving along his gaunt cheeks. _You're strange, you Jedi. I don't understand why you choose to put yourselves at risk for people you've never met. Most of them are cowards, you know. They wouldn't do the same for you._

She bent down and collected a few twigs for kindling. Somewhere high in the trees, a bird screeched and cackled. It took her a few seconds to draw her muddled thoughts together and formulate a reply.

_If the people we help are afraid, it's because they have a right to be. They haven't been taught to fight and they aren't equipped to deal with a threat like the Sith. Revan and I were raised to it. Even when we were children, we knew that we had to be prepared to die. We knew the words by heart: "A Jedi's life is sacrifice". I don't expect someone like you to understand it._

_I don't understand it,_ Sandor answered,_ but perhaps I might learn to admire it. We Chiss have legends that speak of warriors such as you, ones who lived before the beginning of the Ascendancy. They were called the Awasti-Seran, the Blood Legions, because, in spite of their strength, their greatest honor was to die for the weak, to fall saving another's life in combat. If they existed, they were noble, no doubt, but it is little wonder they didn't survive to protect my people._

Up in the trees, the shrieking bird at last fell silent. Shira could sense the evening approaching, a chill thickening in the air, leaves rustling in anticipation.

_They might return, Sandor, one day, under another name, in a different guise. Love like that doesn't die. It just sleeps for a while. _

His retort came quick and sharp. _That's a charming story. You Jedi are full of lovely platitudes._

Shira shut Sandor out of her mind and concentrated on the more pressing issue of firewood. It wasn't worth contradicting him. Besides, all too often she felt almost as cynical and as hopeless, as though they were just weak refrains she parroted, scraps torn from the Jedi Code or the counsel of dead masters. Faith was hard and soon night would fall in the dense jungles of Xendrin.

"It is easy to forget how weak you humans are. We do not encounter many of your species nowadays."

Atton stared up at a dank cave ceiling toothed with stalactites. Candlelight wavered over the walls, which were marked with cryptic symbols and alien figures reeling about in concentric circles. He sincerely hoped that this was just another side-effect of bad spice, but it had been three days since he'd smoked the last of the stuff.

The shriveled face of the True Sith looked down on him, almost a semblance of affection glimmering in his black button eyes.

"It has been a while since I've had occasion to speak Basic. I find you humans of the Republic fascinating toys, so very complex, such a range of impulses. The Chiss are not nearly so intriguing – they have acquired too much self-control over the years with that Ascendancy of theirs. They were once human, too, you know, settlers, quite adventurous, not even blue until that Csilla ice settled in their veins. Very sad. In any case, I prefer humans now. Better materials."

Atton raised his head and sat up, lifting himself off the damp cave floor. The room was sparsely furnished with candles, a writing desk and a few mechanical devices, metallic flowers whose rusted petals peeled back to reveal electric maps and revolving holo-images. There was a wooden door just to his right, although he couldn't be sure whether it led to the light or deeper into the earth.

"And now you are pondering escape," the True Sith said. "I can see the workings of those human thoughts as clearly as though your skull were transparent. Do not worry yourself. I have no interest in killing you. That would be contrary to our objectives. We seek to help every sentient to achieve his true, his best, potential."

"Good luck with that," Atton muttered. "So, where are all your friends? I kind of figured the True Sith would be more than a one-man operation."

The True Sith presented him with a gracious smile, revealing a single row of square, yellow teeth. They reminded Atton of kernels in a rotted corn cob.

"Oh, they are about, many, many, many of them, although they do not frequently appear in the flesh," he chuckled. "I might arrange an audience, if you wish. That is the job they gave us, my brothers and I, as the four guardians of the Black Gates. We have been entrusted with care of the guests."

"Hey, I'm sure your buddies are real hospitable but I'm not feeling particularly social right now. I'm trying to track down two other humans, Jedi, a man and a woman. You happen to get any visitors matching that description?"

The True Sith shook his head. "No, no. It is a pity. Jedi! What fun we could have with such marvelous puppets. Like humans, but better, more powerful, you see, even more possibilities to play out. But I suppose that's why we shift our attentions towards the Republic. It is a good theater."

He turned away for a moment, muttering to himself and shaking his threadbare little head. The notion of Jedi lurking about sent tremors of excitement quaking through his squat body.

"Oh, well, oh well," he said at last, seeming to recover himself. "A human and a Force-user of some sort, almost a Jedi. Good enough. You will do nicely. Come along now. I'll bring you past the Gates. You will get an audience, I promise."

Atton grimaced."You know what? You wouldn't know it to look at me, but I'm kinda shy around big groups. And I don't think I'm properly dressed to meet important -"

"They are not too fastidious. Come along now, friend. Come along nicely. I should not like to have to hurt you again. They will be expecting us shortly."

They had just finished eating supper around the fire, when the rain came. Only a matter of seconds passed between the first fat droplet plunking down onto an open leaf and the torrent that burst in upon the canopy. It was a relentless rain that poured in from every nook and cranny, that stripped petals from the wild flowers and leaves from the trees, made every green more vivid, and stung bare skin like a cool, sweet lash.

Shira laughed as water streamed down her cheeks and plastered her dark hair to her head. "Holy frack! It's been a long time since I've felt rain like this. It's wonderful."

She glanced over at Revan, who had pulled his hood over his face and seated himself on a nearby rock. His features were almost entirely obscured by the hood except for the bottom of his nose and the taciturn twist of his mouth.

Huddled in his drenched grey robe, he looked like nothing so much as a very indignant shyrack hatchling, which made her laugh all the more. There were Cathars who were less sensitive about getting wet than Revan was. He seemed to interpret foul weather as a personal insult and held a lingering, well-known grudge against the Dxun monsoons.

She was about to tease him on this front, when she felt a jolt of awareness. Something was coming, moving quickly through the underbrush.

"I sense something approaching. We should get ready," she whispered.

"I'm ready," Revan grumbled. "When am I not? I just wish the Sith would wait an hour or two and let me kill them when it's dry."

It took her a second to spot Sandor crouched under a shrub with long, drooping leaves. With his dark blue skin, he almost melded into the jungle shadows – it was only his glinting red eyes that gave him away.

_Try to climb a tree – there's going to be trouble_, she advised him.

He pushed back the leaves and crept out of his shelter.

_I can snipe a few of your opponents from up there if you wish. I just need a weapon to do it._

Shira rummaged through her supply bag and found an old blaster, still partially charged. She tossed it at Sandor. _Take it. Now get out of the way and make it quick!_

As Sandor scrambled up the slick bark of a nearby tree, Shire could hear the sound of boots tramping through the mud and blades threshing through tangled branches. She drew her lightsaber and waited, her body low to the ground and poised for the first kill.

Revan stood on the other side of the clearing, half shrouded by a curtain of delicate purple vines. He mugged at her, drawing his index finger across his throat as if it were a dagger, no doubt signaling what he planned to do to the first Sith through the clearing.

The voices became louder, and then suddenly, a curved green blade sliced through a low-hanging branch.

It took Shira a moment to realize that it was attached to an arm and that this arm was connected to a gigantic mantis. The insect mowed through the foliage and broke into the clearing, rearing on its back legs and slashing its sharp arms like scythes. It was followed by four Sith troopers, whose numbers were quickly whittled down to three, as Revan duly delivered on his promise and sliced the first one through the throat.

While Revan dodged the attacks of the remaining troopers and Sandor fired blaster bolts from the treetops, Shira set about contending with the mantis. Yellow eyes swiveling in its head, it lumbered towards her, swinging blades on either side.

She dodged the attack, her feet slipping in the slick grass. She dug her heels into the mud and stung the mantis with her lightsaber then ducked its next attack.

Despite the chaos around her, she knew it would be necessary to concentrate, especially since she rarely used the ability to control beasts in battle. She took a step backward and closed her eyes, concentrating on the Force which surrounded her more powerfully, more perfectly than the rain beating down upon her neck and shoulders.

She could sense the presence of the rampaging creature, its torment under the electric whips and collars of its Sith guards, its fear, its restlessness, the twitching pulses of its green body. Through the Force, she could feel its instincts merging with her will, its survival becoming intertwined with her own desire to live.

The mantis spun around, thrashing its razor arms through the air. It struck out at the remaining Sith troopers. There was panic in the ranks. The insect's blades slashed a trooper across the chest, leaving a spray of dark blood on the grass. The last Sith tried to run, his speed remarkable, but Shira tossed her 'saber at his back. It whirled through the air, hissing and fizzing in the rain, and cut him down just as he reached the edge of the clearing, before it boomeranged back into her hand.

"Now for the insect, I guess," Revan muttered. He lifted his 'saber.

Shira reeled around. "No, it's okay. Watch. I'm actually getting the hang of this."

She focused on the mantis, its beady eyes shifting forward and back, hesitant. Then all at once, its head turned, its mandibles snapped shut and it loped away, cutting a broad swathe through a thicket.

"Nicely done. You were smart getting that thing to fight for us," Revan said. "When it comes to choosing allies, I'd choose a giant insect over Sandor any day. That Chiss is a lousy shot. Unless he was trying to kill me, in which case, he's a mediocre shot."

Shira grinned. It was hard as hell getting a compliment from Revan, so when you earned it, you were sure to cherish it.

"So, what now, Rev? I know you've been hatching some kind of plan for us, if only so we can get away from all this rain."

Revan paused, his hood slipping back until she could see the furrows worry dug into his forehead. "Good question. I've been trying to come up with something that doesn't involve admitting defeat and running away. After a disaster like this, the Chiss won't give us any more troops."

He paused, nervously licking his lips. She'd never seen him so obviously unsure of himself. It was almost endearing.

"Do you like taking your life into your hands, Shira?" Revan asked. "If we go ahead with this, things are going to get – risky. Personally, I think I need to do it. I can't see this mission fail.

"You don't have to come if you don't want to. You can wait here. T3 will repair the ship. If I'm not back by the time he's done, fly without me. Go home."

She was suddenly very aware of the silver chain around her neck, the one Atton had given her so long ago. It felt cold and sweet against her skin, like the falling rain, like the chill of evening descending upon them. Her hands reached up and unclasped the chain. She slipped it into her pocket.

"If you're going, Revan, then I'm going too. Two exiles, right? We'll do this together."

"Now you will see them, my mighty brethren, the True Sith," the ancient guardian announced, as they approached the black gates. "It is an honor to serve them."

With a sweep of his arm, the gates swung open.

"After you," the creature said.

"Thanks," Atton muttered, feeling anything but thankful.

He stepped through the passage, feeling the True Sith's beady black eyes upon him. He was trying to keep his head about him, but as he moved past the gateway, he could sense something black, something evil leeching onto him. He imagined it as a blob of sludge, wrapping oily tentacles around his limbs, sucking at his flesh, opening its toothless mouth to swallow him whole. He pushed back the feeling and tried to re-focus his mind on something else, anything else, on watching the smoke ascend in thick clouds, on counting the number of footsteps he took.

The little creature scurried ahead of him, parting the smoke with his hands as though it was a grey curtain.

"Look! Look at them. Do you see? They have been waiting."

Atton's voice stayed level, perfectly monotone, but his eyes widened in disbelief. "Yeah, I see them."

He saw them - circles and circles and circles of small, perfect bones, thousands and thousands of skeletons carefully arranged in concentric rings that led inexorably to a marble plinth, where a black obelisk jutted to the clouds. Each skull was polished to gleaming white, each mouth set in a ghastly grin, each set of empty eyes fixed on him as though the True Sith were waiting for a formal introduction.

Atton shuddered. It was as if he had just stepped into the cold shadow of something so enormous, so terrifying that he couldn't comprehend it, could barely recognize its existence.

"You see them, but you do not see what they represent," the guardian whispered, his voice taking on a strange fervor. "You think they are dead, that they cannot harm you without their weak, mortal bodies. I tell you that they are strong. Through the Ritual, they have cast off the individual flesh and become One Mind, One Spirit, One Power, a force potent enough to alter the galaxy, even usurp the power of the Force itself."

Atton's eyes were still fixed on the bones, spread out over miles of glassy black earth. He wasn't going to show any fear. If it came down to it, he wanted to go out defiant, laughing at the Force and its whims as though he was in on the joke.

"They're gonna change the galaxy? Not too shabby for a bunch of fossils," he said. "What are they going to do? Run for the Senate? Hey, they'd fit right in."

"Do you always babble such nonsense when you are afraid?" The creature's shriveled face became even more puckered in his displeasure. It reminded Atton of Kreia, although even the True Sith were nicer than that old scow.

"I'm not afraid. I'm just bloody confused. I'm not used to having conversations with corpses."

The guardian sighed. "I tell you, it is the false Sith, the Republic pretenders, or brutish fools like Asmortis and his followers who cling to the flesh and contend for the worthless illusion of individual power. Their petty lords rule but briefly and die, each striving for his own gain which in the end, will be his loss, his destruction, the death of power. It is only in relinquishing the body that we find the Great Body of Sith, in disposing of the passions that we find the One Passion, in giving up individual force that we embrace the Truth of Sith, a power which may encompass even the Force itself."

"You win points for style, but I'm not buying the philosophical mumbo-jumbo," Atton sneered. "I'd prefer to go back to the physical torture, if you don't mind. It hurts a hell of a lot less than listening to this bantha crap."

"I am educating you for a reason, human. If you are chosen, if you are worthy to be a vessel, you will enact part of the grand design, at least so long as you live to play your part. It is the greatest beauty, a theater that will last forever, a passion play that will challenge the Force and its fruitless balance or the dull Jedi quest for stasis in a galaxy that begs for change. Long after the bodies of tomorrow's heroes and villains rot away, we will still find our puppets and we will play."

"And no one can destroy the True Sith because they're already dead? That's the big idea?"

"It is easy to oppose the visible, the threat one sees cloaked in flesh. It is more difficult to contend with the unseen, the power that manipulates the galaxy as nimbly as the Force itself. Jedi and the Sith pretenders will fight one another, claiming small, useless victories, believing the galaxy is their battleground, when indeed, it is their stage and they act upon our whim. If the elders choose you, you will be among the honored ones who bring our influence to the Republic. A high honor, petty human, one I do not think you deserve."

"Yeah, you're probably right," Atton smirked. "I'm not worthy. Better put me back where I came from. Don't want to besmirch the good Sith name."

"Your humility is false but pleasing," the creature said. "Do not fret. I have no doubt my brethren will find some use for you. We can employ even the basest of materials. Why we even made use of an old Corellian spacer and his servile Chiss idiot! In any case, I shall leave the final decision to my people, the glorious Dead. Proceed along the path to the circle's center."

"And if I don't?"

"Then I shall lift you up and set you in the place. Do you doubt I can do it?"

"Since you're offering, why not? I'm feeling lazy today."

"Very well."

Atton concentrated on resisting the True Sith's power and for the moment at least, it did seem that his feet would stay planted on the ground.

The little creature stared at him, grinding its rotted teeth. "Very good. Stronger than I anticipated. It is a sign of some promise."

Atton was smart enough not to answer with a wisecrack this time, even though he could feel potential responses lining up in a secret corner of his mind, pounding fists at the back of his throat, demanding to be let out. He bit his tongue hard, hard enough to draw blood, and tried to focus on the pain. He wanted to fight, he wanted to kill, but if he let his mind wander towards the subject, he knew the battle would be over before it had begun. He had to tap into the discipline he knew he could exercise, the resistance that would save his life once again.

The pazaak cards were set on the table and the game was ready to begin. The deck shuffled itself, the numbers re-arranging into wins and losses, blue and white, blue and white, blue and white and red. He could play this game forever or until the True Sith crumbled to dust, whatever happened first. The minutes passed along with the games lost and won. He might be a damned fool like everybody said, but he was a persistent one and that had to count for something.

Unfortunately, as he was congratulating himself on all this self-restraint, his focus broke for just a moment. It was simply a second, the blink of an eye, but it was long enough.

The True Sith hoisted him into the air as though he was made of rags and hurled him towards the center of the circle.

Propelled towards the black obelisk, Atton thought for one feverish second that he would die, that his head would smash against the stone and dash his brains out. But just as his body was about to collide with the monument, he jerked to a halt in mid-air. The True Sith placed him down on the ground gingerly, delicately, smiling all the while with his little corn kernel teeth.

"I must bid you farewell now," he said. "It has been a sincere pleasure. My brethren will take good care of you. I promise it."

The True Sith turned and hobbled away, as Atton felt the shadows latch on to him, the evil thoughts swarming in like locusts. They had a plan for him, a purpose for him much more terrifying and insidious than any Force bond.

He had to believe he could resist it.


	10. Precipice

They trekked through the jungle, relying on the early light of Xendrin's red suns to track their position.

Twined together by creeping vines, trees grew until they were almost inseparable, a living wall of bark and foliage. It was difficult to focus on one path or one objective amidst this tangle of life, the distant sound of birds intruding at the edge of one's hearing or the mechanical whirr of jewel-backed insects flitting from flower to flower. Branches snaked overhead or slanted down towards them, pointing accusing fingers, and with each step, Shira began to feel more and more dazed. It was as though she was seeing everything through a kaleidoscope and the colors were spinning, shifting, melting together like candle wax.

Far away, something dreadful was happening. She could sense it but she could not discern its nature and she could not stop it. Like the steady tramp of their feet against the forest floor, it would not cease, it was happening as they marched onward, as the birds sang in the trees and sunlight warmed her back…

"I've got to sit down and rest for a minute."

Revan sighed. Underneath the mask, Shira couldn't make out his expression, but she knew it was one of restless frustration.

"Alright, make it quick. But if my estimate is correct, it shouldn't be long until we reach the base. We don't have much time before the Sith patrols realize something is going on."

Shira sat down on a fallen tree trunk and pulled back the cloth mask covering her face. It felt wonderful to peel the damp fabric back from her skin. They had stolen the uniforms off the Sith patrol they'd killed and while they made for good disguises, the masks were hot and uncomfortable, obviously worn more out of custom than practicality.

She breathed slowly and deeply, trying to center herself, to quell the anxiety simmering under her skin. As angry as she was for what he'd done, she didn't want Atton to suffer and she knew that somewhere across the galaxy, he was in torment. More and more, she was coming around to Revan's point-of-view: no matter what the Jedi Code said, there were times when ignorance was better than knowledge. There were times when she wished that, like a droid, she could have her memory erased and re-enter the world pristine and new, unburdened by regret, anger, love.

Under a grove of twisted trees, Revan and Sandor were speaking Chiss in hushed tones. Every once in a while, Revan would dart a glance at her, just to make it even more apparent that she wasn't supposed to hear what they were saying.

She rubbed her eyes and tried to stop the world from twisting and blurring. Everything would be alright. She'd get up on her feet again and keep walking. She'd think about something good, something beautiful, the blue hills of Alderaan, the Ebon Hawk sailing over the clouds or the fishing boats that drifted along the night river, decked with tiny lanterns. If she focused hard enough, she hoped an image might transmit itself to Atton like a holo-image souvenir of another life, a world away, a time and a place where he could bury the pain.

Round Four. Or was it Five now? It was hard to keep track but when Atton divided it up into intervals, the pain was easier to take and seemed more likely to end.

He couldn't move, couldn't even blink. Most of the time, this was the least of his concerns, but during the brief interludes when he was able to push the visions away, it was excruciating. His eyeballs felt as though they had hardened into stones and his knees ached. His back pressed against the dark stone of the obelisk, a surface that radiated warmth and seemed to pulse with blue light.

Time was passing, although it was hard to know precisely how long the light lasted on a world like this. Dim daylight had turned into evening, a bloody red sky clotted by clouds of smoke and ash.

If there was any consolation, it was that he'd managed to beat the True Sith back for a little while longer. They had not succeeded in absorbing his mind yet, although their plans for him were becoming increasingly apparent, more vivid with each round of the game.

Their voices came in whispers, low murmurs, the sound of waves crashing onto a pebble beach and then slowly drawing back to the sea.

They made insinuations, never commands.

_When you return to the Republic, the Jedi Order will still be weak,_ one voice said.

_Yes, they are still divided under two leaders, two factions. A precarious balance. Should you kill one, the other would topple,_ another chimed in.

_A civil war! _ the voices cried.

_One against the other, one against the other,_ a voice chanted.

_All believing that the Sith pretenders are at work, _another said._ When they look in one another's eyes, they will see their own terror reflected back at them._

_Jedi hypocrites clothed in their own self-righteousness. They judge now, but they will be judged, _a deeper voice intoned.

_They manipulated you, turned you against yourself, but you can take vengeance_, one said._ You know their ways, their secrets, you can twist them. _

_We can teach you how,_ a voice assured him._ We can help you to remember._

_**He was back in Interrogation Room 2-B. His forearms were strapped to the metal chair, a Force-restricting visor pressed down uncomfortably on his head. He was wearing a ripped Jedi robe. Its coarse fibers rubbed his arms raw and scratched against his neck. **_

_**The one of the old Sith operatives was in the room with him, dressed in the black uniform that they wore on base. An executioner's mask was pulled down over the agent's face, the stitching in the leather making the head look like a lumpy, dented smashball.**_

_**Atton squinted up at the figure through the blinding light and tried to distinguish whether it was a stranger or one of his former 'colleagues'. Such a clean professional word to describe those schuttas. Sure they used to crack jokes in the barracks and swill juma together in the cantina, but he'd always known that any of one of them would turn on him, given half the chance. They were all very good at their jobs. They had to be. **_

_**He could almost discern the agent's eyes through the slits cut out of the mask. Two murky eyes trained on him, looking at him and looking through him with one glance. There was a gash in the mask for the agent's mouth. Whoever he was, he was smiling. He had teeth like tombstones.**_

_"**I bet you wish you were back in my position now," the agent said. "After everything we've been through, I never thought you'd become one of them. Jedi."**_

_**Whoever it was, the guy was modifying his voice with an implant. It was unnaturally deep, the kind of thing a two-bit kidnapper would use if he was making threats for a ransom. **_

_"**I'm not one of them," Atton answered. "But I'm not one of you either."**_

_"**Let's not make things unnecessarily complicated. If you're not with us, then you're against us. You remember that, right? You know how this story is going to end."**_

_"**I'm guessing it's not happily ever after?"**_

_**There was a bare bulb dangling from the ceiling, a pitiful stand-in for the sun.**_

_ **A black gloved fist descended and eclipsed its light. It smashed against the side of his mouth. He hacked up blood, felt it dribble down his chin. **_

_ "**Ugh. That's revolting. Don't you have any pride?" the operative said. "It makes me sad to see you reduced to this. You've seen better days, my friend. You used to be in control. Now you're nobody, just a pathetic drunk looking for another escape, another cheap fix."**_

_**Atton laughed. "If I've got to choose between being a pathetic drunk and being a sadistic schutta like you, then I say bring on the juma."**_

_**The operative sighed and shook his head. "That's not the choice we're giving you, Atton. You've got two options: being a 'sadistic schutta', as you put it, or being an ugly corpse. It isn't a hard decision. We're offering you some power back and a chance to have a little fun. The Jedi, they played you, but you don't have to be their fool anymore."**_

_**The agent leaned over and looked him hard in the face. It was then that Atton recognized those dull eyes and that crooked smile. **_

_**Welcome back, Jaq. **_

_**The gloved hand lashed out as if to hit him again, but instead just patted him gently on the cheek. **_

_**Jaq reached into the back of his mouth and removed the voice modulator implant. He snickered and dropped it on the floor, then peeled back his mask.**_

_"**Okay, you got me. You're a little slow on the uptake, aren't you? Who else did you think it'd be?"**_

_"**Yeah, you're right. As soon as I saw a coward in a mask I should have put two and two together." **_

_"**Aw, Atton, that hurts. Cuts like a knife. But it's okay. I can forgive you."**_

_**Atton didn't answer - just spit a mouthful of blood back in Jaq's face.**_

_**Jaq paused and wiped his face with his gloves, putting on an expression of offended dignity. "Didn't your parents teach you any manners? Okay, yeah, I know they didn't, but that's still no excuse."**_

_**Jaq circled Atton slowly, seeming to evaluate him from all angles. It was an old trick he used to make the prisoners nervous.**_

_"**Look, I know you, kid. I know what you're capable of," he said. "So you got a little scared and you ran away. No big deal. You might have changed your name but you can't deny blood. You and I, Atton, we understand each other. Hell, we share the same body – and it's a pretty damn good-looking one, too. I admit that sometimes I get a little angry with you when I see you making stupid, rookie mistakes, but in the end, it's in our best interests to get along. I want to help you out."**_

_"**There's a reason why I cut you loose," Atton said. "You need me, but I don't need you."**_

_"**You don't need me? Who are you kidding? Look around you. You got us into this mess. The only way we get out of it is if we cooperate, if we work with these True Sith schuttas. You don't have to like it - you just have to do it. Trust me, it's a hell of a lot better than dying."**_

_"**Maybe I can do it, Jaq. Maybe I'm alright with dying now. If I die, you go too." **_

_"**Maybe. Or maybe you die and I keep on kicking," Jaq said. "But there's no reason to do anything too hasty. You're feeling confused right now. I can straighten you out, turn you back into the man you're supposed to be. No more chasing after Jedi skirts, no apologizing for who you are, no more pretending to be somebody you're never gonna be. You're better than that. You still have talent, kid, and you've learned a few new tricks along the way."**_

_**Atton squinted at the bare lightbulb dangling from the exposed wires, the white light blurring, streaming down and becoming a hazy halo before his watery eyes. There was someone standing behind his chair, someone Jaq couldn't see although she stood in plain sight. **_

_**Tahet leaned over Atton, a strand of her dark blonde hair brushing gently across his neck.**_

_"**You can do it. I'll be here with you. I'll stay," she whispered. "You asked me once why I wanted to save you. I'll tell you now. I saved you because I knew that you would save her."**_

_"**Save who?" he murmured. "I'm nobody's hero."**_

_**Jaq slammed Atton's head against the back of the chair. He punctuated every question by pounding his prisoner's skull against the metal headrest. "What are you talking about? Who you talking to? Huh? Answer me, idiot!"**_

_**Atton gripped the arms of the chair as though he was bracing himself for a fall. He didn't want this burden, not any of it, didn't want to have to make the choice that was coming.**_

_**Tahet, Prisoner 164, watched him with earnest eyes. There was not a trace of contempt or pity in her gaze, just the calm acceptance of one who had already passed her test. **_

_"**She believed that she was meant to help you," she said, "but it is you who will save her in the end." **_

_**Jaq spoke over Tahet, his mouth fixed in a smile but his eyes glowering. He didn't like to be ignored. "You've got to quit it with that spice, Atton. You're starting to make me wonder about you." **_

_**Atton kept his eyes trained on Tahet's care-worn face. "So what am I supposed to do?" **_

_**Jaq gave a loud, theatrical sigh, jerking Atton's neck around so that he had to look at his interrogator. "You're more trouble than you're worth, you know that? I'll bet I could make a deal with these Sith without you. I bet I could kill you and it wouldn't make a lick of difference."**_

_**Tahet's voice was slow and patient, her breath faint against Atton's ear. "When it's time, when you find her, you'll know what to do. Right now, you need to get through this trial, to overcome these last few obstacles. It isn't as difficult as you believe."**_

_"**Come on, Atton, what's it going to be?" Jaq said, wrapping an arm around his shoulder. "Are we going to be a team again? Just like old times? You missed me, I know you did. Don't play hard to get. We work well together, you and I." **_

_**Atton stared into the bright white light, trying to anticipate how it was going to feel. He knew what Tahet wanted him to do, the escape she had plotted for him from this metal chair, this dingy room. He gritted his teeth together, the bitter taste of blood still lingering in his mouth.**_

_"**No deal, Jaq. I'm done with you. For good."**_

_"**Aw, now that's a shame. The end of a beautiful friendship," Jaq said. **_

_**The arm that had snaked around Atton's shoulder crept up towards his neck. **_

_"**But, look," Jaq continued, "I know you understand where I'm coming from here. I like to live and, hey, if you're not willing to tag along for the ride, then I've got to take my chances without you." **_

_**Jaq's gloved hands wrapped around Atton's throat, his thumbs pressing down upon his windpipe, gently, experimentally at first, as though it was a joke, and then harder. Much harder.**_

_"**It was fun while it lasted, old buddy, but the truth is you're a bit of a dead-weight now. I've always done my best work alone."**_

_**The hands loosened a little, adjusting their grip, toying with him, and then they tightened around Atton's neck with crushing force. The room, the harsh white light, the rough black gloves, they were all spinning around him, scummy water swirling down the drain.**_

_**Jaq kept talking, incessantly talking. He could never shut up, he couldn't stand the silence and so he filled up the room with words, words, words, meaningless sound really, a tongue clacking against teeth.**_

_**Atton's dry lips had parted and he knew the low, agonized sounds of gurgling and choking were coming from his own throat, as Jaq squeezed and squeezed, smiling down at him with an expression of manic good humor.**_

_ **Balloon-bloated, Atton's head felt ready to float up to the concrete ceiling. His glazed eyes were just two mounds of jelly. His body no longer belonged to his mind, it was only a system of dying cells, deflated organs, brittle bones, limbs frantically flailing for life.**_

_**Something in his throat snapped but it didn't matter anymore. Now every surface was flattening out, every line converging, every color radiating into the darkness under his eyelids, sparking, sending up flares. He blinked and light flooded into his astounded eyes: a moment of unbearable elation, and then nothing.**_

_**Nothing at all. **_

"[This is suicide,]" Sandor said, grimly eyeing one of the enormous statues erected in front of the Xendrin base.

It was the image of a fearsome creature, part man and part serpent, with a sleek, flat-nosed face and a snarling mouth full of needle teeth. It was crushing the heads of two terrified men under its clawed feet.

"[It could be worse,]" Revan replied. "[It could be murder.]"

He adjusted the Sith mask on his face and moved ahead on the wide path to the base doors. Shira and Sandor followed him, passing the looming statues of krayt dragons and terentatek, stone tableaus of men groveling before dark shrines, and grotesque scenes of massacre laid out in intricate mosaics.

Revan glanced back at Shira, who was wending her way along the path in her own sweet time. Through the disguise she wore, her eyes were misty-colored, distant. She was a cipher sometimes, that infamous Exile, although he wasn't sure she was a mystery he really wanted to solve.

"What's happening? It's like you're sleepwalking."

She snapped to attention. "Sorry."

"Keep your wits about you, alright?"

"I've got it, Rev. Just worry about taking care of yourself. I can manage."

"If you say so," he said, shaking his head. Hopefully she'd wake up once a few Sith started whirling lightsabers in her direction.

They passed under a black archway and start walking up a long flight of crooked steps. The twisted body of a Sith trooper sprawled across four of the bottom stairs. Her head had been dashed against the stones and blood cascaded down the edge of the nearest step, pooling on the one beneath it.

Revan stooped over the body to see if there was anything to salvage. He'd determined that there was nothing of value, when he felt something close around his ankle and realized with a sickening wrench of his stomach that it was the Sith's hand. She was desperate and digging her fingernails into his skin.

He grunted with disgust and kicked off the putty-colored hand, then kept walking up the stairs.

Shira spoke to him from the stairs below. "Force, when I see their bodies discarded like this…it's strange. They murder one another. They seem incapable of fighting as a unit. It's -"

Revan continued his ascent. "Inefficient. Yes, I know."

"I was going to say 'brutal'."

She paused a moment and he knew she was putting the Sith woman out of her misery. He didn't bother to look back down and see how she did it.

"But it's disorganized as well," she continued. "Kreia told me that the True Sith would be different from anything I'd ever imagined, but they're the same, just the same as all the others. Don't you think that's odd?"

"I just think it's odd that you listen to Kreia. She's a liar and she'll mess with your head any chance she gets. Seems to think it's educational."

He scaled the last of the stairs and scanned the base entrance, an ornate set of double doors surrounded by marble columns veined with grey and red. A handprint recognition system was set on the left hand side of the doors.

Sandor and Shira trudged up the last steps behind him.

"[I can take care of the door myself,]" Sandor said, shying away from Revan.

Revan chuckled, almost enjoying the impertinence. "[Go ahead. I won't stand in your way. Are you excited to be back home with old Sith friends?]"

Sandor didn't answer him. He placed his hand into the detection imprint. The lights encircling the system flashed red and then green.

The doors slowly ground apart, revealing the inside of the Xendrin base, a lavish main hallway decked with red curtains. Chandeliers hung from the high-arched ceilings. They were carved out of polished bone.

As they entered the base, an officer approached Revan and began issuing orders and reprimands in the guttural language these Sith used among themselves. The officer jabbed him in the chest with his index finger and bellowed out his disapproval.

Revan couldn't understand a word of it, but he stood up straight and kept nodding submissively, attentively, as Shira withdrew her lightsaber and Sandor readied his vibroblade. They fell upon the officer before he could even grab his 'saber and then dragged the body behind a set of curtains, a notably convenient place for hiding corpses.

There were holo-vid screens implanted in the stone walls. Revan watched one of them as it flashed through a few moments of carnage, a team of white-clad Sith massacring a group decked out in yellow. It seemed to be sporting event, like stadium dueling, except without the safety measures. Spattered with blood and dusted with sand, the victors towered over their victims with a sort of purposelessness, waiting only for the next slaughter.

Revan turned away, revolted. He'd seen enough of these beasts to think that the end of their civilization would not be a great loss to the galaxy. If these were the True Sith, then there was nothing in their philosophy but the instinct of a crazed predator to kill and kill and kill, even when its stomach was full, if only for thrills, the spurt and dazzle of blood. He'd take them down with pleasure, even if he had to die for it.

The first thing he heard was a single gasp and then the sound of his own ragged breathing.

Atton tentatively opened one eye and then the other, surprised to see a grey sky churning with clouds.

He sat up, noting every ache and pain in his body. His throat hurt, his mouth hurt and the back of his head hurt like hell. In fact, he was pretty sure even his earlobes, his pinky toes and the follicles of his hair were in pain right now. He rubbed the back of his head and found a tender lump forming there, the approximate size and shape of a kinrath egg. Yet, in spite of the bruising and the blood matted in his hair, he felt relieved, almost grateful for the pain that reassured him he was alive.

Atton wasn't sure what had happened to Jaq. It might be that he was dead or it might be the True Sith had consumed him. Maybe the schutta was still lurking around, still clinging to life in the torture chamber he'd created for himself. Atton didn't care anymore. Wherever Jaq was buried, he wouldn't dig up that body. Nobody would mourn the loss.

Atton clambered to his feet and began to pick out a path across the circular rows of bones. They were just dead things now, without significance or terror, the refuse of the past washing up at his feet like driftwood.

He stepped on a finger-bone and listened to it crunch under his boot. The sound made him flinch a little the first time he heard it but after a while, he got to savor the desecration and stamped a few old bones to chalk. It felt good to take a little bit of revenge for what he'd suffered. He'd won. Even if the True Sith weren't gone, and even if the voices couldn't die, they wouldn't live on in him.

He pushed the black gates open and looked around for his old guardian pal. The little creature wasn't there.

Atton took a deep breath and managed draw enough strength from the Force to push his body into a run. He sprinted across the planet's dark surface, smoke singeing his nostrils and the thin air burning in his lungs. It felt good, almost as good as when the _Ebon Hawk_ kicked into hyperdrive and streaked past the stars.

He was almost halfway back to _The Direstar_ when he spotted HK wandering along the black rocks. He was surprised to realize that he'd actually missed the walking glitch factory. Compared to the True Sith, just about anyone else made for good company.

"Hey, HK! I thought I told you to stay with the ship!"

The blaster carbine fastened to HK's hands was raised, as if he were using it to wave hello.

"[Statement:] Indeed, Meatbag, I did process your request to stay with the ship. However, my master has given me more pressing orders to execute."

Atton stopped dead in his tracks. "What? Which master?"

"[Helpful Clarification:] I refer to my first legitimate master: the Dark Lord Revan. I have been programmed to give his directives precedence. [Confession:] It has taken me many planetary cycles to recover his orders. I expect that when I encounter him, he will take a most satisfying vengeance on me for this delay."

Atton reached a hand under his lapel, where he'd stowed his weapon. He might be a slow learner, but taking a few knocks on the skull was generally enough to educate him.

"HK, Revan is gone. Hell, he might be dead for all we know. His orders don't mean anything anymore."

"[Objection:] Even if Revan has suffered the pathetic end of all meatbags, his orders remain," HK said. "He is a good master and would be pleased to see me making efficient use of my weaponry. [Commentary:] Your mistake was to betray such a good master, defector."

The muzzle of HK's blaster carbine lined up with Atton's head. There could be no doubt about who he was referring to as 'defector'.

Atton scowled. So much for camaraderie. It served him right for entertaining even the most grudging hint of affection for a droid.

"I don't think you want to do this, HK. You may have taken my lightsaber but believe me, I can still think up a hundred ways to turn you into scrap."

HK's golden eyes glowed through a haze of smoke.

"[Recitation:] Jaq Rand, you have been cited for unauthorized elimination of a Jedi prisoner, failure to report for duty, and desertion," the droid intoned. "According to the fifth edition of the Revanchist Conversion Manual, these constitute Class 1 offences, the penalty for which is immediate death."

"Frack, it never ends, does it?" Atton sighed. He was bone weary.

The blaster carbine rattled off a round, illuminating the smoke and stirring the flakes of falling ash.

Atton dodged the first shots and launched forward, ready to attack.

As he bolted back from a particularly close call, he smiled to himself and enjoyed the joke. The droid might have him outgunned, but he'd been keeping a secret weapon in reserve, something HK's programmed logic could not anticipate. Atton had never expected it to come in so handy, but all too often the most useful things were the ones you stole.


	11. Into the Dragon's Maw

The room was empty, free from the usual guards and patrols, but that didn't mean it was safe. If anything, Revan thought, such places were more dangerous, more likely to lull them into a false sense of complacency or let them believe that they could pause and rest. Even now, the Force quivered around him, vibrating like a plucked bowstring.

Shira paused at the room's threshold, gesturing to Sandor to remain still. "What do you think, Revan? I say it's another trap."

"Almost certainly," he replied.

He cast a suspicious eye over the decadent gold mirrors decorating the walls on either side of the room and the spiked chandeliers that dangled from the ceilings. In every room and down every hallway, there were at least a hundred different ways to die.

The Xendrin base was a veritable labyrinth, with intricate clusters of rooms built to disorient infiltrators and conceal deadly traps. They had already encountered dead-end corridors venting poisonous gas, staircases that led to guillotines and boardrooms dissected by sharp, almost invisible wires. Sandor had nearly blundered into the center of a gallery where footfalls triggered stone archers to unleash genuine arrows.

Sometimes the traps were all too apparent because they had already been triggered. They found Sith victims sprawled on the floor, their bodies bloated by poison or mutilated by blades, their shocked faces stamped with agony. One got the feeling that game-rooms such as these were not really defenses so much as simply more entertainment for Asmortis and his followers, another way to cull the strong from the weak.

Revan stooped down, squinting at the decorative tiles on the room's floor. At the edge of each tile, there was a tiny red mark.

He glanced up at Shira. "What does this look like to you?"

Shira crouched down beside him and looked at the red mark. "It looks like a 'Z' shape. You think it's some kind of code?"

"I think it's our way across this room," Revan replied. He pointed to the tiles, his finger tracing out a zigzag shape across the floor.

"Alright, so we stick to the 'Z' pattern," Shira said. "Makes sense. I just hope it works."

She shot an anxious glance up at the chandeliers, which resembled maces hanging from rusted chains. "I'm still keeping an eye on those spiky things. I can't say I'm too fond of the interior décor around here."

"Yeah, yeah, you've got a bad feeling about this. I get it," Revan laughed. "This galaxy is running out of optimists."

Shira smirked. "Probably because they keep turning up dead. You want to try walking the room?"

Revan tilted his head in Sandor's direction. "Let him do it first."

"He tested the last one."

Revan gave her his best boyish smile. "So? Let Sandor do it again. He's good at it."

"I think what you mean to say," Shira retorted, "is that he's expendable, mainly because he isn't the Great and Powerful Revan."

"Maybe. Look, I'm all for protecting the innocent, but that Chiss isn't innocent, not by a long shot. I'm just -"

Before Revan could finish his sentence, Shira leaped out onto the furthest tile on the floor, the first square in the 'Z' pattern. There was a breathless second when they waited for electricity to surge through the floor or an axe to plummet from the ceiling. Nothing happened.

Shira looked back at him, her face triumphant. "Sandor isn't innocent, Revan? Well, neither are we. I'm going first this time. Next trap we run into, it'll be your turn."

Atton dodged another shot from HK, grabbing his weapon from under the lapel of his jacket. He ignited the blue lightsaber, its steady beam a marked contrast from the wavering golden one he was used to wielding.

Mical's lightsaber.

When Atton had stolen it during that last confrontation on _The Direstar_, he certainly hadn't expected that it would save his life. It had been a last vengeance, a petty trophy he could gloat over. He'd stowed it away and barely given it a second thought until the suspicious disappearance of his own 'saber.

HK seemed undeterred by this latest development. He simply changed strategies, utilizing his flamethrower to put a wall of fire between himself and his opponent. Atton leaped back just in time to escape being scorched by the flames.

"[Observation:] I appear to have underestimated the number of lightsabers in your possession, Meatbag. But I think you will find that I also possess an assortment of elimination protocols that you have not anticipated."

"What?" Atton laughed. "You have a watergun too?"

He tried to execute a Destroy Droid attack, but it fizzled miserably. Evidently, he hadn't been paying enough attention when Shira had taught that lesson to her class of overgrown padawans. He vaguely remembered spending the bulk of that afternoon tabulating his most recent pazaak winnings, contemplating new methods of aggravating Mical and trying to get an eyeful down Shira's robe.

Tongues of flames burst forth from HK's flamethrower, licking at Atton's arms.

Atton gasped, not at the heat of the flames, but because one of the tiered shoulders of his jacket had just burned away. He whirled the blue 'saber around and hit the droid with a quick flurry, sending him staggering backwards.

"I'm going to have a lot of fun ripping out your vocabulator," Atton panted.

He advanced on HK with his lightsaber held at ready. "Sithspit, I can't believe you burned my jacket. You got any idea how much a quality garment like this costs?"

"[Statement:] Factoring in current trade conditions and the competitive nature of the galactic market, I would estimate no more than five credits."

HK's reply was followed by a surge of electricity that knocked Atton flat on his back.

He scrambled to his feet and managed to sidestep HK's next attack on quavering legs, still feeling the electric current jolting through his body.

Force, he was angry. It was one thing to steal his lightsaber and try to kill him. Atton probably could have forgiven that in time. Some things, however, were unforgivable, unconscionable.

.Nobody, not droid, Sith, Jedi or twi'lek dancing girl, was going to get away with wrecking his favorite jacket.

Shira was the first to descend the ramp into the catacombs below the base. She edged down the steep, slippery incline, her back pressed against the stone wall. Behind her, Revan and Sandor were grappling with the same treacherous footing.

She reached the edge of the platform and peered around the side of wall. In the center of the room, seven Sith officers were seated around a mahogany table, devouring meat off the bone and guzzling drinks from golden goblets. It was a revolting spectacle. The Sith officers' food gave off a thick, pungent odor, slathered their lips with smears of oil and greased their fingers.

Shira turned back towards Revan and held up her hand, signaling the need for stealth. Revan nodded and unsheathed his lightsaber, creeping further down the ramp to join her.

The first two Sith barely had time to swallow their meat before the Jedi 'sabers were in their backs.

Shira withdrew her beam from the fat body of the seated Sith and leaped across the table, ready to strike down another of the officers. Her beam hissed through the air, but the officer parried the blow with his black 'saber.

Chairs crashed to the floor, plates shattered against the stone walls and knives flew through the air, their steely points directed at Revan. He dodged the blades and flung them back with greater force, driving one of them into an officer's forehead.

Morsels from the Sith feast toppled from the table, only to be trampled by heavy boots as the fighting progressed. From behind the ramp wall, Sandor attacked the remaining officers with rapid blaster fire, shots that sparked through the dank room and careened off the ceiling.

Shira could hear the Force screaming around her, its open mouth hungry, greedy for life and for death. The candles lighting the catacombs flickered as if troubled by the wind and the fighters' bodies cast long, lurid shadows on the walls.

More Sith soldiers poured into the room to challenge her and Revan. Three of them jostled together and jabbed their weapons at Shira's chest.

She threw one of them backwards against the wall and contended with the other two, dancing away from their scorching beams and countering their attacks with quick flourishes of her lightsaber.

Spotting a break in one of the Sith's defenses, she lunged forward and stabbed him in the shoulder. He groaned as she sliced downwards, cutting towards his heart.

The other Sith, a tall woman with lank yellow hair, was a better fighter, more assured with her blade, more talented in using the Force. As they fought, she smiled at Shira, exposing purple-veined gums, and licked her black lips in anticipation of a kill.

The stink of rotten meat only became more apparent the deeper they moved into the room. It made Shira light-headed and nauseated, even though she knew how necessary it was to concentrate, to calm herself and the power of the Force roiling around her.

She breathed deeply and attempted to clear her mind, focusing only on the task before her. Everything began to move more slowly, as though it were all happening deep underwater, where the sunlight existed only as a distant dream. Drawing strength from the Force, Shira overturned the mahogany dinner table, gold platters and red wine spilling on the floor, and rolled it at the Sith woman, pinning her into a corner.

The woman snarled in protest, thrashing against the weight of the table. It took one slash through the neck to finish her. She slumped to the floor, her body wedged behind the thick wood surface.

On the stone wall, the shadows shifted again, configuring themselves into ominous silhouettes and grotesque clumps. Shira suddenly realized that the third Sith had picked himself up off the ground and flanked her, but the knowledge came a second too late. When she reeled around, his black lightsaber was already descending upon her.

Atton swerved to the right, evading another spray of fire from HK's flamethrower.

"You know what I said about cutting out your vocabulator? I meant it. I'm going to tear it out, wrap it up and give it to Revan as a Life Day present."

"[Statement:] I will miss your threats, Meatbag. Perhaps you will utter a few more before you die, so that I may store them in my memory banks. No doubt my master will find your speeches most entertaining."

Fire scorched the black earth and singed Atton's hands. The air seemed to boil around him. Sweat beaded down his forehead as he slashed HK with the blue lightsaber.

The droid recoiled, sending a current of electricity dancing towards Atton's legs.

This time, Atton was quick enough to avoid it.

Before HK could take aim at him again, Atton delivered a flurry of attacks at the droid's metal visor.

HK attempt to lift his flamethrower, but the blue lightsaber struck him again and again, searing his bronze plating

The yellow light in HK's photoreceptors flickered and dimmed. His vocabulator wheezed and when he spoke, his voice came out deep and slow, a bizarre distortion.

"[Diagnostic:] Systems failing…systems failing…shutting down….shutting…down."

The droid staggered forward a few steps and then dropped to his mechanical knees. He tottered for a moment and then fell flat onto his visor, his gawky bronze frame laid out on the burnt earth.

Atton crouched down and managed to roll the damaged droid over. He was surprised how much he was going to miss the crazy contraption. It was quite likely that he'd never hear the word 'meatbag' again.

It happened in one breath, one gasp, one sinister hiss of a Sith 'saber slicing flesh. Shira felt the blade searing through her chest, its scorching heat rippling over her skin.

But the pain was not her pain. It did not belong to her. It was Sandor's.

He'd flung himself between her and the black lightsaber and taken the full force of the blow. The beam cut into him, charring his deep blue skin. He didn't make a sound, just dropped to the floor.

It was Shira who was left to scream, feeling the force bond rupture inside her like a bursting heart. She struck out at the Sith and cut his head clean from his shoulders. She gave her war cry and then her voice faltered, died in her throat, and the only sound she heard was her own blood pounding in her ears.

She knelt on the ground beside Sandor. He was still alive and coughing up dark blood. The blade had burned through his tunic, cutting deep between his ribs so that she could glimpse sloped bone peeking out through seared flesh.

"I can heal you," she said. She pressed her hands against his hot cheeks and tried to strengthen his flagging pulse.

Sandor looked up at her, his eyes glazed with pain, and shook his head. More blood burbled from his mouth

Her force powers were drained from the battle and there was little left to offer him. She tried again.

Sandor grabbed her hands and pushed them back, shaking his head again. "Forgive," he rasped.

"There is forgiveness in the Force," Shira said. "You already have it. It can save you."

Sandor reached down and prodded his wound gently with his fingers. Shira watched him, hoping that as a healer, he would be able to tell her what to do, how to save his life. Sandor winced and let his hand fall to the ground. He sighed.

"I…die…I die…slow. Please."

Shira gazed down at him and gave a slow nod. She understood. Cradling Sandor's head in her hands, she leaned over and kissed him gently on the forehead.

"May the Force be with you," she whispered.

Her hands twisted Sandor's head with one swift, practiced motion.

His neck snapped.

When she got back to her feet, she realized Revan was studying her intently, unflinchingly. His hawk-like eyes and their pinprick pupils were so focused that it startled her.

"Do you honestly believe that?"

She paused for a moment. "I want to."

"It's a nice thing to believe in," he said. "If I ever have to die in your arms, I want you to tell me the same sweet lies."

"Maybe they're true."

"Maybe," Revan said, turning his back on her. He strode towards the door, moving so quickly that she almost didn't catch the last words he mumbled under his breath. "I never realized you were so good at breaking necks."

Shira wiped her bloody hands on the front of her robe, leaving two red smears on the fabric.

"Something I learned in the war," she said. "If they have to die, there's no reason to make them suffer."

The portal was enormous and shaped like a dragon's maw. It was the strangest doorway Revan had ever seen, impractical but imperial, misguided but magnificent. Its extravagance epitomized the excess of the Xendrin base and its delusions of grandeur. Looking at it, he had no doubt that this was the way to Asmortis, the tyrant who reigned over these Sith.

Overhead, the dragon's crystalline eyes glimmered, its scales carved from the iridescent enamel of shells. The door, constructed from the dragon's mouth, was shut and its grim teeth seemed calculated to menace any who might venture to break the door's lock.

"Frack, it's hideous," Shira said. "This whole place is grotesque. It's a wonder the Sith don't claw their own eyes out."

"Actually, I rather like it," Revan replied. "But I'm not here to argue aesthetics. We should probably be searching for some kind of mechanism to unlock the door."

Shira pointed at a black button in the center of the dragon's claw. "Problem solved." She jabbed it with her finger.

Two beams of light gleamed down upon them, refracted through the eyes of the dragon door. The fuzzy blue beams met in mid-air, slowly melding into a single holo-image. Revan recognized what it was almost immediately, but he had no idea how such an artifact might come into the possession of Asmortis and his Sith followers.

"What is it?" Shira asked.

Revan stared at the image. "It's a Rakatan Icon. I could explain its importance, but it would mean a two-hour lecture on intergalactic history."

"That sounds terribly educational," Shira replied. "Why don't you give me the short version?"

"The Rakata used to rule the entire galaxy. They don't anymore."

Shira gave him a droll smile. "Thank you, Revan. Very informative."

"Oh, and I can speak their language too." He knew that would infuriate her even more. Shira envied his Force-given flair for alien languages almost as much as she coveted it.

She groaned. "Well, you damned polyglot, why don't you try talking to it?"

It wasn't a bad idea. He took a few steps forward, examining the Icon, and then spoke to it in precise Rakatan.

"[Greetings. What must we do to pass through this door?]"

The Icon's lips moved, the voice appearing slightly out of sync with its mouth.

"[The lock has been activated. The authorization codes are required in order to pass.]"

"[I don't have any codes. Are you sure there are no alternatives?]"

"[There is one way, but I don't think you will like it. It is a traditional challenge of the Rakata]"

"[A riddle contest.]"

"[Indeed,]" The Icon said, his fishy eyes swiveling around. "[But with an important difference. If you are defeated, the floor underneath your feet will give way and you will fall into the pit where the Sith toss their corpses.]"

"What's he saying?" Shira asked.

Revan chuckled. "He wants to know if you're good at riddles."

"I'm not."

"That's not the answer I was looking for," Revan said. "We'll have to try."

He turned back to the Icon. "[Okay, you're on. What are the rules?]"

"[The first one who fails to answer the riddle loses. I begin,]" the holo-image answered.

"He's going to give us our first riddle," Revan muttered, responding to Shira's questioning look.

The Icon revolved in a slow circle, speaking the riddle in a lilting cadence.

Revan repeated his words, translating them for Shira.

"Here's what he said:

'You know my name and loathe my face

when I am far away.

But when you yield to my embrace,

you do not know

that I have come to stay.

What am I?'

What do you think? I have an idea, but I wish there were a few more clues."

Shira furrowed her brow. "What's your guess?"

He leaned down and whispered it in her ear.

She nodded. "That works. I can't think of anything better."

Revan took a deep breath and then spoke to the Icon.

"[I have the answer to your riddle. You are 'Death'. We fear death when we are alive, but when we are dead, we are longer aware that it exists.]"

The Icon gave a tight-lipped smile. "[Yes, you are correct. I began with an easy one, too easy, perhaps. You may propose your riddle now.]"

Revan remembered a bit of verse he used to read from a yellowed old volume on Lehon. It was silly doggerel, but the Rakatan archivist had treated it with solemnity, as great wisdom.

"[Here is your riddle:

'I turn tongues into knives,

I twist names and sully lives,

I can be white, pale with good intention,

Unpleasant things I cannot mention.

I may live for many other reasons too,

But whatever I am, I cannot be true.

What am I?']"

The Icon paused and scratched his head. "[This is an old riddle of my people, little-known now. If my system memory serves me, the answer is this: You are 'a Lie'. Whether you work for good or evil, whether you serve a just cause or an evil one, you cannot be true.]"

"[That's right,]" Revan said, suddenly wishing that he'd taken time in his studies to memorize more riddles. He'd just used the last of his extremely limited supply. "[Go ahead. Ask me the next one.]"

The Icon rattled off his riddle quickly this time, so quickly that Revan had to ask him to repeat several lines. Finally he managed to make enough sense of the verse to translate it back to Shira, who was looking increasingly puzzled.

"Okay, this is what he asked us:

'I am not a river but I flow through dark country

When I am captive, you are safe

When I escape, then you will fear

When there is suffering, you will see me

And feel the wings of death beat near.

What am I?'"

Shira frowned. "Why don't we take the clues slowly and process them line by line. I'm thinking that it's something liquid because it 'flows', right?"

"Okay, we'll work from that assumption," Revan said. "It's something liquid, and it seems to be dangerous, to cause deaths."

"But the verse doesn't necessarily say that. It just says that if this liquid needs to be kept inside something and if it isn't, then there'll be danger."

The Icon watched them, a slow smile twitching across his elongated face. "[Your time is running out. If you cannot answer me in another 45 seconds, I will have to declare a victory.]"

"[Fine,]" Revan snapped. ["But our time isn't up yet"]

"It's something that will bring you close to death if it escapes," Shira murmured. She fidgeted with the long sleeves of her robe, letting the fabric flutter and trail.

Revan stared at the two dark red stains streaking down the blue garment and all of a sudden, an idea clicked into place. A good idea. He was so grateful that, if Shira's cheeks weren't smeared with dirt, he might have kissed her.

"That's it! Force, it's so simple." He pointed to the bloodstains on Shira's robe. "It's blood."

Shira laughed. "So, the answer was hidden in plain sight."

Revan turned back to address the Icon. "[The answer is 'Blood'.]"

"[Ah, very good,]" the Icon nodded. "[This will be a better contest than I had expected. Give me your riddle.]"

The look of triumph on Revan's face turned into one of chagrin. He didn't know any other riddles and it would be difficult to come up with one difficult enough to stump the Icon off the top of his head.

"Shira, we need another riddle. Please tell me you know one."

"Rev, I told you, I'm not good at these kind of things. It used to frustrate me so much when Master Vandar made us study them."

"Come on, you don't know even one? We need to win this contest."

Shira shrugged. "So we lose. We'll just find another way through the door."

"It's not that simple. I should have said something before, but if we don't win, our life expectancy – well, it drops significantly."

"What?" She stared at him. Her green eyes were bright, wide and very angry. "What in the hell have you gotten us into this time?"

"[I am waiting,]" the Icon said. "[Do you wish to forfeit?]"

"[No,]" Revan replied. "[Just give us a moment]."

He glanced over at Shira and concentrated on looking appropriately repentant.

"I'm sorry, I know - I should have said something before I got us into this. But come on, I know you remember at least one of Vandar's old riddles."

Shira sighed, her dark head bowed and her hand resting on her chin as she mulled over the problem. "I'm trying, I'm trying. There was one that I used to like, one that I thought was quite pretty actually, but I have to remember the clues."

"[I will not wait much longer,"] the Icon said. "[You must present a question soon or face the consequences of defeat.]"

Revan ground his teeth together. "[I get it. Be patient a couple more seconds. We'll get your riddle.]"

"Okay, okay, I've got it figured out," Shira gasped. "I just need you to translate for me."

Revan fixed his eyes on her intently. "Alright, go ahead."

"This is what I can remember:

'The more you hoard me, the less you'll keep.

If you give me to another, the more of me you reap.

I am said to be gentle,

I am said to be cruel,

Because I humble the wise man

And smile on the fool.'

That's it."

Revan repeated the verse in Rakatan for the Icon's benefit, although he was sure some of the meaning was lost in translation.

The Icon paused in his slow holo-image rotation. "[Hmm, this is not a riddle of Rakata. I must ponder this.]"

"What did he say?" Shira asked.

"He's thinking about it," Revan replied. "What's the answer?"

She whispered the solution into his ear. Like all riddles, the answer was almost absurdly obvious once it was explained.

"I always thought it was a nice little poem," Shira said. "It was one of the few riddles that actually made sense to me."

Revan laughed incredulously. "You learned this in the Enclave? If you ask me, it comes dangerously close to contradicting the Jedi Code. And Vandar used to repeat that in front of the younglings?"

"Yes, I believe that's where I learned it. I mean, I'm sure he didn't tell it when Master Vrook was around, but it's hardly offensive."

"A trifle sentimental perhaps. Not what I'd expect from Vandar. If I were going to pick a candidate for that kind of defiance, it would have been Kavar."

Revan was surprised when Shira blushed. He'd forgotten that there was an awkward story there.

"No, not Kavar," Shira said. "In spite of the rumors and that manner of his, he – he was quite conventional in his way."

"Conventional enough to let Mandalorians destroy Republic worlds," Revan muttered. "I haven't forgotten that."

Revan glanced over at the Icon, whose holo-image had become blurry in his bafflement. "[So? What's the answer? We've given you long enough.]"

The Icon gave Revan a sly, sidelong stare. "[Very well. Your answer. It is…Justice?]"

The grin began as a sharp glint in Revan's eyes and then spread out along his lips.

"[No. Wrong. You lose.]"

"[You jest.]"

"[I don't. You lost. Now unlock the door as you promised.]"

The Icon blinked twice, gaping at Revan and scratching his conical head.

"[Very well,]" he conceded. "[But first, you must tell me the answer, the solution to your riddle.]"

"[The answer is 'Love',]" Revan said. "[And if you ask me, it's the greatest riddle of all. Now open the door.]"

The holo-image flickered off and the crystalline eyes of the dragon dimmed. They heard a rumbling from beneath the floor, the sound of powerful stone gears grinding together. The whole room seemed to quake under their feet.

The dragon's jaws wrenched apart. The toothed door was open.

Fear bristled through Revan's body. He felt it clouding his lungs and constricting his throat. He knew that this terror was his enemy, that it would drive him to the worst extremes, the most desperate measures. Above all things, he needed to remain calm and purposeful. Soon they would confront Asmortis and fate of the galaxy would be forever altered. Soon they would either vindicate the Force or dissolve into its boundless night.


	12. X

Shira knew fear. She knew the way it clenched in her stomach like a fist, the way it sat in the back of her mouth like a stone. Many people were afraid to die. It was a normal part of living, something that she knew happened even to the most disciplined Jedi despite all their training and mental preparations. But when Shira was being honest with herself, she realized that she had come to terms with the inevitability of death a long time ago. She wasn't afraid of dying. She was afraid of dying alone.

Beyond the dragon's maw, there was a red room with high-vaulted ceilings. The chamber was unfurnished except for a massive table littered with the remnants of many meals, scores of gleaming platters, empty goblets and cages of bones picked clean. Someone had plunged a butcher's knife into the wood of the table. Rust bled along the blade's edges.

A rank stench saturated the place, the same oily odor that she'd caught a whiff of at the Sith officers' table. A smell like that had a way of sticking to the inside of one's nostrils and coating one's skin, a way of making a person feel filthy from the inside out.

She glanced over at Revan, who was inspecting the food with a piercing gaze he usually reserved for the enemy. He reached across the table, dipped his hand into a silver bowl and picked up a single bone still hanging with pieces of gristle. He held it up between thumb and forefinger.

"Now I don't know much about gourmet cooking," he whispered, "but this doesn't look like it came from a nerf steak."

Shira felt her stomach heave inside her. She hadn't recognized the smell until that moment. It was the smell of a rancor's nest in summer, the odor of flesh and blood baking under the sun.

Something stirred behind the red curtain at the back of the room.

Shira and Revan ignited their lightsabers almost in tandem, the beams casting faint light on the tiled floors.

The hiss of the 'sabers, the thump of her heart in her chest, the silken whisper of the curtain; these were the only sounds Shira knew and for a second, it seemed they were the only ones she had ever known.

She saw a hand first, although it was only a pale blur against the crimson fabric. It drew back the heavy folds of the curtains, revealing a round white face, a bald head and eyes like holes burned in parchment. On the creature's forehead, there was a red mark in the shape of an 'X'.

The ungainly monster slouched across the platform, a putrid mound of flesh propped up on stubby legs. He gaped down at them, his face twitching as if the sight of Jedi revolted him or, perhaps, filled him with inexpressible delight. His mouth was a ring of blood. It took her moment to realize that there was flesh underneath, that the gory red smear was not a distinct feature of his anatomy.

The blood was not his own. It came from the severed finger he was holding in his hand, a finger that he drew up to his mouth and nibbled delicately. As he gnawed, his jowls wobbled and his doughy face beamed with infantile pleasure.

Asmortis.

She'd heard Sandor speak his name only once. Each syllable had taken effort and the name had constituted a single sentence, a complete answer. Once he'd said the word, Sandor would not speak it again. It was a curse to let that name past one's lips.

_Intruders. Jedi. You have come to die._

Asmortis' voice in her head. She didn't have to look at Revan to know that he could hear it too.

The Sith lord descended the stairs, hefting his bulbous body with surprising dignity. His maggoty skin was almost translucent, blue-green veins etching through his arms and forehead.

"We have come to kill you."

She loved Revan for having the temerity to speak. Her own lips couldn't form the words. They just mouthed silent prayers, gasped frantic breaths.

Asmortis reached the bottom of the steps.

_I hunger and then I feed upon ones such as you. The taste of your flesh and your power mingled. Oh, it is satisfaction. And my strength only grows._

The monster raised his hand and pointed at her. He drew a line down her chest and suddenly, her mouth dropped open as if someone had unhinged her jaw. She heard an agonized scream, and the only thing she could think, as if from a great distance, was that the woman screaming was going to die.

He was slicing through her. Blood bubbled over the gash in her skin, soaking through her robe. Her voice was the shriek of a saw cutting through something hard.

Revan shouted orders against the back of her head, pounding the words into her skull. "Resist it! Resist it, damn it! He's in your mind!"

The bleeding stopped and she felt a wave of force-healing pulse through her, just enough to keep her fighting, to keep her on her feet. Shira recovered just in time to see Revan flung across the room, his body crumpling at the foot of the table.

Fear drained out of her along with the blood. She fought with desperate courage, and pain spurred her towards a frantic grace. She balanced every thought, every motion on a high-wire, parrying, weaving, dodging and slashing her violet 'saber through the air.

Her lightsaber struck the Sith lord's back, cooking flesh until it burned. She hit the monster again and again, scorching holes through his black robe and then retreated, resisting his attempts to invade her mind.

Asmortis' black beam jabbed at her throat but she managed to elude him again. She countered with a quick flurry of attacks that missed their target but distracted the creature long enough for her to maneuver out of his way.

The air sparked with electricity and then became hazy with green clouds of poison.

Shira skirted the Force attacks and concentrated her own powers into a wave that seemed to melt the floor beneath the Sith lord's feet.

Asmortis stumbled backwards, his lightsaber thrashing wildly. The beam swooshed over Shira's head and she felt the heat brush against her shoulder.

She lunged at Asmortis and stabbed him in his flabby stomach. The 'saber sank into his soft, sickly flesh.

"You die," she whispered. "You die."

She twisted the blade into his belly.

The monster laughed and pulled it in, deep, deeper, pulling Shira along with it. He gnashed his teeth and writhed with delight, his long white tongue lolling out from between needle teeth.

_You cannot kill me. Fool. My body is your grave. It hungers, hungers. _

He knocked her backwards, tossing her towards the far wall. Her body slid over the smooth tiles and the silver chain Atton had given her slipped out of the pocket of her robe.

Her hand inched forward and closed around the chain, the metal coils cool upon her fingertips. Darkness closed in and she lay still, sprawled out on the floor like a broken doll.

Atton's dark eyes scanned the navigational panel, taking note of the hyperspace co-ordinates. According to Konrad's star map, he was flying into a system known only as the Redoubt, an appropriately cryptic name for a mysterious edge of the galaxy. The place was basically a factory for stars, dominated by a massive nebula and its eerie red-orange pillars of cloud. Outside _The Direstar's_ paneled windows, the view was spectacular. Newborn stars twinkled like jewels between the nebula's towering columns, illuminating ghostly streamers of hydrogen gas that rippled away from the swirls of interstellar dust.

Atton had never felt so grateful to be alive, so dazzled and so suddenly free. A smile kept creeping across his lips and it wasn't until the sides of his mouth began to ache that he realized it was there. The force bond remained, but he'd cut the very last of the bonds tying him to his worst self. Jaq was gone, gone for good, and all at once, the galaxy seemed rife with possibility.

He'd just steered the ship past a binary star when visions began to flash through his mind, freeze-frame images like some holo-vid slideshow. They were glimpses of a stolen past, a year spent in a white-washed house on Alderaan. It had been the quietest time he could remember, but for once, that had been a good thing. Everyday, he'd woken up to her face, as certain as the sunrise. He caught a quick glimpse of her sleepy smile, the tendrils of dark hair that fell over her cheek and along her neck. He saw the river and the paths they walked, feeling her hand linger on his back. The forest around them was speckled with afternoon light, the leaves as green as her eyes.

The streets of Aldera came to him in all their familiar bustle, outdoor cafes where the tourists sat and played lazy games of pazaak. He'd passed the best night of his life in that city, stone-cold sober. Without a doubt, it was the summer night when she'd coaxed him into dancing with her at the Lantern Festival along the pier.

He saw it again, as though it was still happening, as if it was always happening somewhere, and time was not a line, but a perfect circle, a silver chain clasped around her neck.

_Shira gave him a shy smile, her pale skin radiant under the lantern light. "So, do you know how to dance?"_

_"Nah," he said. "I don't do that. Let's just relax and listen the band – they're alright."_

_She laughed and grabbed his hand, dragging him towards the tiled floor where dozens of couples were already dancing. "Come on, tough guy. You'll thank me later."_

_"Alright, but I'm warning you, my hands will be straying."_

_He didn't know how to dance, but the next number was slow, so he just held on to her and shuffled his feet a little bit._

_ Her arms laced around his neck and her slender body seemed to melt into his as she clung to him. He could feel her relaxing into his chest with a soft sigh, the dark curtain of her hair hanging over his shoulder._

_ She leaned back and smiled up at him. "This isn't so bad, is it?"_

_"No, not bad at all," he said, giving her butt a quick squeeze. _

_"Son of a twitch!" she laughed and swatted at his hands. "You can't be romantic for one minute, can you?"_

_He grinned. "Romantic? Force, why didn't you say so before? Here I am, pretending to be some kind of charming scoundrel because I figured you liked it. But, hey, I can do romantic. Some romance coming right up, sweetheart." _

_His arms went around her again, pressing her close. They swayed to the music, the crowd milling around them, the stars glimmering down through a murky sky._

_Her cheek nuzzled against his neck and then rested upon his shoulder. "You should be careful, Atton," she whispered. "I think you might be falling in love with me."_

_"Maybe," he said. "And if I did?"_

_She kissed him, a quick peck that landed in the indentation between his bottom lip and his chin."I guess I'd just have to learn to tolerate it. I'm sure I'd get used to it after a while."_

_"Oh, yeah? Get used to it, huh?" He grabbed her hand and twirled her around, then pulled her back in and kissed her hard on the mouth. "If you're going to kiss me, let's do it right."_

_She laughed again. "I'm starting to think you like dancing."_

_"I'm learning to tolerate it," he teased. "I'll get used to it after a while."_

_She laid her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes._

_"This is good," she murmured. "You. Me. All of this."_

_They kept dancing even as the songs changed, even as the crowd subsided, and the night flooded in upon them like dark water._

Atton's fingers jabbed at the navigational panel, kicking_ The Direstar_ into high-gear. The ship rattled in protest then sped forward, plunging deeper into the Redoubt. He knew something was wrong. The visions of their shared past had come through the force bond as a cry for help. He knew that time wasn't on his side, but somehow, he hoped that she would wait for him, that she would know he was on his way.

Revan stumbled to his feet. His vision was still blurred, but he could focus well enough to make out Asmortis' sluggish body, the black expanse of his robe, the roll of fat between the back of his bald head and his doughy neck.

He aimed his lightsaber for that spot, but before the beam could hit its mark, Asmortis spun around, hissing, and parried the attack.

_Your friend. She is dying. Very frail now. Easy to cut through soft skin like that. _

Revan ducked Asmortis' black 'saber, feeling the weapon's heat pulse against his face and singe the bristles of his beard. He maneuvered to the side, slashing through the monster's shoulder with his beam.

The hit would have felled another fighter, but the Sith lord treated it as a glancing blow. Even the hole burned through his stomach, a parting gift from Shira's lightsaber, did not seem to faze him or slow down his attacks.

Asmortis was an ugly schutta, half man and half maggot. His mouth was an open sore and his fat hands were tipped with long, blue-black nails. He fought well with a 'saber, but he seemed to draw his real strength from an almost primal connection with the dark side. The dark side seemed to wear Asmortis' flesh like a hideous robe, to channel itself through his every movement. At moments, Revan imagined that he was facing the dark side itself, staring down unfathomable evil through those hollow black eyes.

Retreating behind the table, Revan held his lightsaber before him and prepared himself for the next offensive. His head was beginning to clear and the peril of his situation was becoming increasingly apparent to him.

"So, how many times do we have to kill you before you die?" he demanded.

_I am a grave. I do not die. I will eat your death. I will consume your flesh. There is no escape for you but through me._

Asmortis grinned. As his mouth opened, a thick cloud of insects swarmed out, buzzing towards Revan. They stung his skin, twitching their sticky legs against his ears, his cheeks, his eyelids, clouding around his body in a frantic black spiral.

Revan raised his hand in the air and hundreds of dead insects dropped to the ground. With another flick of his fingers, he sent a gust of plague sweeping towards Asmortis.

It only seemed to amuse the Sith lord. The creature laughed, his chalky face contorting with glee.

_No disease can touch me. Every poison, I drink. Each cup makes me stronger. Surrender and I will kill you quick. Little pain will you feel. If you persist in struggling, I will flay you. Eat your body while you still live. _

"I'm still planning to see you dead," Revan answered. "I will make you pay for what you did to those Chiss, for what you did to Shira."

_Very well. Choose to suffer. For you, there is no victory. _

Asmortis leaped up on to the table, slashing his 'saber at Revan. The black beam danced dangerously close to Revan's collarbone, close enough to slice a stripe of cloth from his robe.

The Sith lord laughed, his arm arcing back to swing the blade again.

Revan seized his chance, knowing full well it would be his last. He thrust his lightsaber upward, into the maw of the monster. The beam plunged into Asmortis' mouth and exited through the back of his skull.

For a desperate moment, Revan stared up at Asmortis, transfixed, wondering if this final effort would be enough to destroy him.

The creature glowered down at him, his wicked black eyes brimming with silent loathing. In the depths of those eyes, Revan imagined he could see a dark grave staring back at him, refusing to let him forget that only legends, only the dead, could be immortal.

And then suddenly, the bulbous body began to spasm, the black eyes rolled back in their deep sockets and Revan was able to draw another breath.

It was done. After all these years of searching, he had vanquished the evil. It was over. He withdrew his lightsaber from Asmortis' mouth and the fat body tumbled to the floor, just a mealy sack of meat.

He switched off his lightsaber and walked over to Shira's body. She was still alive, but without help, she was not likely to stay that way. Kneeling over her, he inspected the long gash that ran down her chest, slicing between her breasts. It was a vicious wound, but amidst all the blood, it was hard to evaluate how deep it went, how much it would take to suture it together.

His Force reserves were drained, but he would give her whatever healing he could offer. If all else failed, he would not leave her body here to lie amongst the Sith. He would carry her back to the _Ebon Hawk_ for one last voyage. In spite of her exile, she would have a proper funeral with all the ceremony that a Jedi deserved.

He brushed the hair back from her face and placed his palm against her cool, damp forehead. He would try to keep this faint flicker of life inside her.


	13. A Sea of Stars

Revan stood in the central room of the _Ebon Hawk_, his arms folded across his chest. If there was one thing he couldn't stand, it was being kept waiting. He had to continually remind himself that the leisurely schutta in question was a rescuer, and that he was going to have to be gracious, but it didn't help much. After all, he wasn't too fond of being rescued either.

He drummed his fingers against the side of the computer console. After some tinkering around the ship's engines, he and T3 had managed to get the _Hawk_ airborne, but the hyperdrive was still a mess. They were stuck orbiting Xendrin, their ship just a tiny grey dot amidst the star-strewn Redoubt. As much as he hated to admit it, they needed help and they were damned lucky to get it. He didn't recognize the ship that had responded to their distress signal, but it was a Republic freighter, the kind of rusty old clunker that only saw service in the Outer Rim.

Revan was evaluating the state of his fingernails, which were abominably torn and ragged, when he finally heard the voice of his rescuer.

"Where is she?"

It was not the greeting he'd been looking for, but then everything about this visitor was decidedly unexpected. He was a lanky, broad-shouldered guy with artfully rumpled hair and a lop-sided smirk that Revan immediately wanted to wipe off his face. His leather jacket was at least three sizes too big for him and had probably been rolled off the body of some back-alley drunk. One glance at the schutta was enough to tell Revan that he probably played a mean game of pazaak, skifting included.

"Who are you?" Revan demanded.

"I'm someone who's looking for Shira. Where is she?"

The man start to saunter toward the nearest corridor, but Revan blocked his path. Shira hadn't mentioned a love affair, but he should have known she'd pick a swaggering smart-ass, the kind of guy calculated to give any Jedi Council heart palpitations.

"Slow down a second," Revan said. "I'm just looking for a name, maybe a little bit of an explanation. I consider that a reasonable request."

The man arched a thick eyebrow, his crooked mouth twitching with impatience.

"Fine, have it your way. The name's Atton Rand. I was just in the neighborhood and I figured I'd drop by and say hello," he drawled. "So now that we're through with pleasantries, you mind telling me where I can locate a certain lady?"

Revan hesitated, evaluating the guy's face. He looked like a shady customer, a little secretive, a little sleazy, but underneath the scummy exterior, he could sense an odd sort of sincerity and even, sadness.

Atton stared back at him, his brown eyes a silent challenge. He seemed to resent the appraisal.

"She's in the med-bay," Revan answered. "I'll take you there."

Atton slid past him with astonishing ease. "S'okay. I don't need the guided tour."

The scoundrel managed two steps before Revan's voice intercepted him.

"Wait. There's something you should know."

There was some urgent power in those words or perhaps in the way Revan said them that stopped Atton cold. He reeled around, his smirking face suddenly deadly serious.

"Yeah? What? Tell me."

"She suffered an injury, a grave one. And well - just be prepared."

"Prepared for what?"

"For the worst."

Atton drew himself up to his full height. He was taller than Revan had guessed. For a moment, he could have mistaken the man for a soldier.

"I want to see her. Alone. I get your concern, but I need to talk to her."

"Go ahead," Revan said. "Just...be careful. Take care of her."

The scoundrel blinked. His seen-it-all eyes almost managed an expression of surprise.

"You're not what I expected, Revan. I always found it hard to imagine a face under that mask," he said. "You don't need to worry about me and Shira. I couldn't hurt that woman if I tried."

Atton disappeared down the passageway before Revan could answer him, before he could ask him how he'd known his name.

Sleep still weighed heavy upon her eyelids. Her eyes opened for a moment, thick lashes rising, and then drowsiness overtook her and her eyes would close again. She wavered between slumber and the pain that came with wakefulness, cocooned under layers of white sheets.

A hand pressed gently against her head, stroking through her tangled hair. She sighed, pushing her cheek deeper into the pillow, half-asleep and uncomprehending. It was only when she began to roll over and the hand darted away with guilty speed that she woke up enough to realize there was someone else in the room.

Her eyes shot open. The sound that escaped her lips was too sharp to be a gasp but too soft to be a cry.

He stood over her, his dark eyes soft and solemn.

"Hey."

"Atton."

She wasn't sure what she intended when she spoke his name, whether it was a murmur of pleasure or a quiet admonishment, but she knew it was a complete sentence. No other words could follow it.

"It's good to see you," he said. "It's been a long time since I last saw your face."

He looked dead-tired, but as carelessly handsome as ever. Exhaustion suited his face somehow, lending him a gravity he didn't usually possess. Yet there was also still a boyish helplessness in him, an ache behind his eyes that she knew came from seeing her like this.

"Atton, why did you come here? Why did you come for me?"

"I don't know. I just needed to see you. There're a lot of things that I want to tell you, and I'm not sure if I've got the words to say it all."

She closed her eyes and tried to control the quaver in her voice. "If it's about Tahet, I know. And I can forgive you, because I know that she has forgiven you. She wanted to save you, Atton."

"Shira, I honestly didn't know that she was the one. All I knew was a face and a number. I found out the truth when you did."

She drew a deep breath.

"I need to believe that there is a reason – for you and me, for all of this. All I can think is that if she drew us together, it was done out of love. She knew that you needed me and that I would need you. She loved us both. She forgives us."

Shira took his hand and pressed it against her cheek. His face crumpled and for an instant, she thought he was going to break down and cry. In all their time together, he'd never shed a single tear.

She rubbed her fingers against the rough skin of his knuckles, watching as he struggled to calm himself, to pull back from the verge. He couldn't allow himself to be that vulnerable, even if she was just as exposed, lying half-naked under cold sheets, a red crescent carved out of her flesh.

"I came for you," he rasped, "because I thought the force bond between us was changing me. I thought I wanted to get free from it. It took me a while to realize that this - this bond we have - it's the best freedom I've got. It's the only one I want and I'm not willing to let it go."

She stared down at the outline of her legs under the sheets. Her eyes blurred with tears. A fat droplet rolled down her cheek and plunked onto the pillow.

"Then stay," she said. "Stay with me. I won't run away this time."

Suddenly, the absurdity of the last statement hit her and she gave a rueful laugh. "Not that I'm going anywhere right now. You don't have to worry about me rushing away in the dead of night."

He chuckled. "See, you made a joke. You're getting better already, sweetheart. I just wish I'd brought you a romantic present, like a nice bucket full of kolto."

He paused, eyeing her body veiled beneath the sheet. "How's old Revan been treating you, anyway? The guy may be a military genius, but he doesn't look like much of a nurse."

"He's been good to me, really good to me, in his way. He's not like anybody else. I guess that's why he practically runs the galaxy and the rest of us just live in it."

Atton's eyes didn't stray from the sheet. "Can I see where you're hurt? I just – I want to know what they did to you."

Her hand went up protectively around the edge of the fabric.

"It's not pretty, Atton."

His hand wrapped around hers. Slowly, gently, he lifted each finger away from the sheet.

"It's okay. I just want to see how the wound looks. I might be able to help out a little bit. I mean, I'm not Dr. Mical or anything, but hey, I know a thing or two about getting hurt."

Shira pulled back the sheet then eased away the top of the first bandage, its fabric clouded with dark blood. Her hands trembled as she did it.

"This is it."

Atton kept his pazaak face, but she could spot a glimmer of shock in his unflinching eyes. She hated to have him see her like this, a broken shell of the fighter she had been. It was his love, his desire, the bluster of his bawdy, incorrigible humor that she wanted, not tepid compassion, not bloodless regret.

She pressed the bandage back into place and pulled the sheet back over her bare skin.

"You're going to get better," he said. "I'm going to make sure of it. I'm not too great at this force-healing thing, but I can do it. It will help."

He rested his hands on her shoulders and gazed down at her intently. He obviously thought that staring a hole in her forehead would help the healing process.

Shira smothered a smile. She always found it irresistibly funny watching Atton act like a Jedi, but she knew that if she let on, it would hurt his feelings. He always insisted he'd rather marry a Wookiee than join the Order, but it was a dire injury to his pride if anyone suggested that the Jedi weren't desperate for him to join their ranks.

"There," he said. "Do you feel any better?"

His attempt at force-healing hadn't worked, but she nodded her head and smiled anyway. It wasn't a lie. She did feel better. Just his hands on her skin and the earthy warmth of his brown eyes were enough to comfort her.

He leaned down and kissed her. She squeezed her eyes shut, enjoying the pressure of his lips against her own.

When he drew away, yearning flooded through her body. She felt as if she could kiss him for days, drinking the air from his lungs, living on mingled breath. It had been such a long time since he'd last touched her and it had been such a brief kiss.

Atton looked down at her and this time it was hard to miss the grief in his face. His hand on her arm was gentle, almost pitying, as if she was unbearably frail, a woman sculpted out of egg-shells.

"It's gonna be okay. You'll see. We've made it out of worse scrapes before."

She knew he was scared and trying to calm himself just as much as he was trying to reassure her. Atton needed her to tell him it was going to be alright. He wouldn't rest unless he heard it. He was superstitious that way, endearingly, almost childishly so.

"You're right, Atton," she said. "We've been through much worse than this. Everything's going to be better now. I can promise you that."

He sighed, brushing dark hair back from his forehead. "I should let you rest. Revan seems to think he needs to play chaperone. I'm pushing my luck already just coming in here."

Atton turned to leave, but her fingers encircled his wrist.

"Stay," she whispered. "If you go now, when I wake up again, I'll just think I dreamed you. I won't believe you're real. Stay with me. It's been so long since I've seen you."

"Alright," he said. "You don't have to ask me twice."

He pushed the empty gurney up beside hers and interlocked the metal sidings. Sitting down on the far edge of the gurney, he pried off his mud-crusted boots and folded his long body onto the make-shift bed beside her. His hands curled around the curve of her hips and his chin nestled against the back of her neck.

"You've got one little freckle, right here," he said. His finger pointed to a remote location on her shoulder. "You know that?"

"No, I don't usually look back there."

"That's too bad. It's pretty cute."

She smiled. "Yeah? Maybe you should kiss it."

He kindly obliged her.

"Shouldn't you get some sleep or something?"

"Why? Don't we have anything better to do?" she teased.

He snorted. "Come on, you know I'm usually all for recreational activities in bed, but you're wounded right now. We gotta be careful. Besides, there's a former Sith lord standing down the hall who isn't going to tolerate any hanky-panky. He just finished giving me the eye like he's your disapproving dad. The way he looked me up and down, you'd think I was some punk kid asking to take you out for a date on my speeder."

She laughed. "I don't know what you're talking about! Why would 'recreational activities' in bed bother Revan? I just wanted to know if you'd like to play a couple rounds of pazaak."

He chuckled and his breath tickled against her skin.

"Nah, I'm not in the mood for pazaak right now. And this is probably the only time you'll ever hear me say that, so enjoy it while you can. C'mon, sweetheart, I'm tired. Let's catch some shut-eye, huh?"

A few minutes later, he was snoring in her ear.

She stayed awake, staring at the blank white walls of the med-bay. Bao-Dur's words kept creeping back into her mind, his soft voice lulling her: "I forgive you. I healed my wounds. Now go and fix yourself, General. Do it before it's too late."

He was right. Whatever had been broken inside of her, she needed to repair it. She couldn't ignore the wound anymore, not when it gaped as red and terrible as the gash Asmortis had sliced through her skin.

Having Atton back made it better. His arms wrapped snugly around her, the rise and fall of his chest as he slept, hell even, that wheezing sawmill of a snore; they all made her want to be better, to love him, to heal.

Revan paused at the threshold of the med bay door. He wasn't fond of long goodbyes – anyone who knew him could attest to that. Still, he had to say something. He owed the woman that much.

Shira glanced up from the datapad she was reading. Propped up on pillows and smothered under layers of bedsheets, at first glance she could have been mistaken for a spoiled Coruscanti socialite unwinding at a swanky day spa. Her cheeks were flushed and her lips curled up as though she were enjoying a secret joke. She looked so happy, so consummately pleased with herself, that it was easy to forget that a Sith lord had torn through her chest two days ago and she was hopped up on more painkillers and stims than a camp full of Mandalorians.

"Come on in," she said, dropping the datapad onto her lap. "Since when did you get so shy?"

"I've come to say goodbye, Shira. I've received a transmission from the Chiss admiralty and I'm needed back at Rhigar. The situation is urgent," he said.

It was a terrible lie, but he wasn't about to tell her the truth and make her sacrifice seem worthless. He'd made Atton promise to do the same. As far as Shira would ever know, the True Sith had been defeated and the galaxy was safe. If she recovered, she could go back to the Republic and have whatever life she chose for herself. He almost envied her that freedom. Her journey was over, but his had just begun.

She stared at him. "A transmission? But I thought –"

"I repaired the communications systems," he said, almost too smoothly. "I've been speaking to Atton and he says that he'll stay here and take care of you while you heal."

Shira just nodded. This latest piece of information didn't appear to be a source of much surprise. Perhaps they had made plans already, started scheming what they would do when he cleared out. It should have made him happy, but instead, he felt resentment, perhaps even a tinge of envy. It'd had been a long time since he'd been able to conspire with someone that – intimately.

"I assume it will be okay? My leaving?" Revan asked. "I expect your friend won't mind. He's quite eager to get you – and the Ebon Hawk – all to himself. I've never met anybody so willing to trade a good ship for a rusty old wreck, even if it is the rusty old wreck that saved the Republic."

Shira smiled. "Atton loves the Hawk. I think he'd sell his own mother to Hutts rather than see this thing scrapped. No, I don't mind. It's probably best this way. I couldn't stand to leave the ship either."

She glanced at her small hands laid out on the white sheets and rubbed them together as if they were cold.

"I'll miss you, Rev. I know that may be hard to believe, but even when I hate you, I love you half to death. You're the closest thing I've got to family now, so it's probably fitting that most of the time we want to gouge each other's eyes out."

He chuckled. There was some truth in that. After all they had been through together, they were no closer to understanding each other, but there was a tie between them now, a bond like blood.

"Maybe so," he said. "You fight well and you have a lot of the Jedi left in you, exile or no. Wherever you go and whatever you do, I wish you well."

"What will you do now, Revan?"

He kept the answer appropriately vague. It was better to tell half-truths than outright lies. "I'll do what I've always done, what I have to do. I'll keep going on, keep working, keep fighting. There will always be work for Jedi in this galaxy and you know that work is what I live for."

"You'll go back to the Republic then?"

He paused, wetting his lips. "One day, perhaps, if the Force allows. I'm a divisive figure, a source of bitterness, whether I like or not, and I believe that the Republic is better off without me for a time. After a while, the name 'Revan' will cease to hold much terror and I'll return. When they see me again, I'll be just another old man creaking back home to live a quiet life and see old friends in his last years. Other threats and other heroes will have risen to replace me."

Shira watched him, her green eyes glittering with tears. "Are you sure? Exile can be difficult, Revan, even if it is a self-imposed one. I just hope you'll remember that there are people who care about you. You were our leader. You were our ideal."

"Yes, I was once," Revan replied. "But it can't go on forever. Send my regards to-"

He stopped himself just before he spoke their names: Bastila, Carth, Mission, Juhani, Jolee, Zaalbar, Canderous. It was better to leave those feelings behind for now. They could do him no good.

"Yes?" Shira eyed him expectantly. "To who?"

"Nevermind. Thoughtless words. A bad habit of mine, I'm afraid. I must go now. Goodbye, my friend."

He turned and walked towards the door, but he couldn't stop himself from taking a last backwards glance.

"May the Force be with you."

"And with you," she answered, a sorrowful smile on her face.

He strode away as quickly as he could. He didn't want to feel her gaze burning against his back or hear her sniffle quietly as she wiped the tears from her cheeks.

He hated long goodbyes.

Atton met him in the bridge. He was still a smarmy schutta, but he'd proven surprisingly useful when it came to information.

The scoundrel sidled up to him with a wolfish grin. He was already swaggering around the Hawk like he owned the place. "So I take it you're on your way?"

"You're very observant."

"I pride myself on it," Atton quipped. He paused, his face suddenly serious. "Be careful with those True Sith, whatever you do. They're different, different than anything you've ever seen. Don't underestimate them."

"And the Star Map is on The Direstar?"

"Yeah, I got it all rigged up for you."

"Good. Well, Atton, it's been – interesting." That really was the most honest way to describe it. He shook the man's hand, gripping it just a little too hard for comfort. "Be good to her. Have a safe trip back to Republic space."

Atton raised his arm in a mock salute. "Aye- aye, Captain."

Revan turned his back on the sarcastic son of a twitch and started off towards the docking bay but Atton came chasing after him.

"Hey Chief, I almost forgot to give you this."

The scoundrel's leather-glove hand darted out and passed him a package. The wrapping job was obviously Atton's handiwork. It was hastily done, balled up in cloth and tied up with string. It was an awkwardly shaped parcel, all edges and corners, about the size of his fist. It lay heavy in Revan's palm.

"What's this?" he demanded.

Atton rolled his eyes. "You're not good with surprises, are you? Open it up."

Revan sighed. He wasn't in the mood for practical jokes, but since it was the last time he'd ever see the schutta, he'd humor him. He began to unwind the string holding the cloth together. "What's the occasion?"

"Eh, what can I say?" Atton shrugged. "Life Day comes early this year."

Pulling back the cloth, Revan saw a glint of bronze metal and then a cluster of wires. It was a vocabulator from an advanced droid model.

"Um, thanks? It's just what I always wanted," Revan deadpanned.

"Look a little closer."

Revan squinted down at the identification panel running along the side of the vocabulator. The number was worn, nearly scratched off, but once he'd made out the first three digits, the rest were unmistakable.

Atton grinned. "HK says hello. The rest of him is waiting for you on the ship."

"What? Where'd you find him? I had him disassembled and scattered across half the fracking galaxy."

"Well, I guess he missed you. Or I don't know, maybe the Force 'ordained' it. You Jedi always have an explanation for everything."

Revan pocketed the vocabulator. "Alright, then. It has been interesting, very interesting indeed."

"Just a word of advice: you might want to give his memory a good wipe. I have a feeling he'll be pretty glitchy, probably talking a lot of nonsense."

"I've got it," Revan muttered.

As he trudged away, he couldn't resist a parting shot. He chucked it over his shoulder like a frag grenade. "Goodbye, meatbag."

He didn't turn around to enjoy the startled look on Atton's face.

"You sure this is a good idea?"

Atton thought she was rushing the recovery process, but he knew better than to contradict her when she really wanted something. It would just make her more damnably determined.

"I can do it," she said. "Trust me on this one."

Wrapping a sheet around her body, Shira slowly lowered her legs over the side of the bed. Her dark brown hair fell in messy waves around her resolute face and cascaded over the white hills of her shoulders. She edged forward on the bed and hoisted herself up on to her feet.

She stood, smiling at him, the sheet draped around her sinuous curves, and for an instant, it was as if they were back on Alderaan, in days when time stretched out as long as the afternoon shadows and youth, health, life itself, had seemed eternal. She stood for a moment, then her legs baulked and her knees buckled beneath her.

Atton caught her under the arms before she hit the floor. He could feel a spasm of pain ripple through her body. She grimaced and he heard her teeth clench together, her jaw grinding as she tried to stifle a moan.

"I'll do it," she insisted. "I just have to get my space legs back."

"You did it already," he said. "You got yourself up. Let me help you out now."

"You're sweet, but I think you're mistaking me for a damsel in distress. I'm quite capable of walking to the cockpit."

He scooped her up in his arms even she struggled against him and began walking towards the med-bay door.

"That's probably true," he replied. "But right now, I'm not capable of watching you half-kill yourself trying to do it."

Shira fluttered her eyelashes and pretended to simper. "My hero!" she cooed, waving a hand in front of her neck as if she was fanning herself from the flames of passion.

He laughed. "Sarcastic and stubborn. I think I may have started to wear off on you, sweetheart."

"Don't give yourself too much credit, Rand. I was like this long before you met me. You just have a wonderful way of bringing out all my worst qualities."

She kissed his neck, her lips full and yielding. "Some of my best ones, too."

He turned to the side, maneuvering so that they could squeeze through the cockpit door. "I'm glad you made that last addition. If you hadn't, I might have been tempted to bump your head on the door frame. I'm kind of a schutta like that."

"You wouldn't!" she laughed.

"The lure of the dark-side is strong, babe. I'd resist with all my might, but still, you gotta be nice to me sometimes. Let me play hero once in a while, huh?"

He lowered her down into the navigator's seat. "There you go. See? It wasn't so bad letting me help you out a little."

"No," she said. "You're good to me. I appreciate it. I just don't cope very well with being sick. You know that about me."

He sat down in the pilot's seat beside her, leaning over the armrest so that he could wrap his arm around her shoulder. Her bare skin was petal-soft and cool to the touch.

"Look at it out there," she murmured, nodding at the window. "It's beautiful. We've been all across this galaxy and I don't think I've ever seen so many stars."

He looked out the window at a wall of stars. Burning white, yellow, red, ethereal blue, the lights looked like tiny shards of glass in a cosmic mosaic. It was easy to forget that they were light-years apart, moving in their separate orbits, distant and unknowing. For just an instant, the Force seemed to sew each star together with silver thread, constellations formed before his unbelieving eyes and the galaxy made sense.

He glanced over at Shira, her mouth curving into a spellbound smile, her green eyes languid. "It is. Beautiful." He craned his neck forward and kissed her cheek, then the side of her mouth.

She tilted her head towards him, her drowsy smile widening.

"When I was very young at the Enclave, maybe 5 or 6, I used to look at the stars and pretend that they were watching me. I used to imagine that they knew me and everything that happened to me, whether I had a good day or a bad day, whether I behaved or I slacked off in my lessons."

Shira hesitated for moment. She was suddenly alert and seemed to watch his face carefully.

"I've never told anyone this, but I had this idea that maybe if my mother or my father were looking at the sky at the same time as me, maybe they'd know that I missed them, that I wanted to see them. I used to wonder if maybe they'd realize that they really wanted me and bring me back home. Pretty silly, right?"

"Nah. Not for a kid. I used to believe in all kinds of stupid stuff."

He'd always hated the way he grew up, what his family had been and what they'd made him, but it was hard to imagine having no point of origin at all, nobody to love, not even someone to blame for royally screwing you up.

"Jedi, even padawans, aren't supposed to do those sorts of things, to think about attachments like that," she said. "In any case, it took me a couple years to realize that the stars were different on each planet and my parents wouldn't even be looking at the same sky."

"Eh, everybody gets crazy notions in their head when they're kids. When I was a kid, I used to think I was going to be some big-deal Republic pilot who got the girl and had more credits than a colony of Hutts."

He grinned at her, giving her arm a squeeze. "It may not have all worked out according to plan, but at least I got the girl. One out of three ain't bad."

"This place looks like the end of all things, doesn't it? I'm glad, Atton. I'm glad that you're here with me now at the edge of everything."

"What do you mean 'the end'? This is just the beginning. We can go anywhere."

Her eyes were transfixed by the star-strewn sky, a ghostly beauty in her haunted face. "Sometimes beginnings and endings are the same thing. All that holds them together is love. That's the middle."

She looked at him and her smile was tantalizing. "Force, you're handsome. Did I tell you that enough? Did I ever tell you how much you make me laugh, how happy you make me even when you get me mad, even when I'm so damn infuriated I could kick you out an airlock?"

He gaped at her, unsure whether to laugh or to declare her delirious. "You didn't have to, sweetheart. I already knew."

She kissed him hard on the mouth. "Good. Keep knowing it. Know it past breath, past life, past all knowing. Promise me that you'll never forget."

"I won't," he said, stroking her hair. "But I think you're getting tired. You're starting not to make much sense, babe."

She rested her head on his shoulder, nuzzling her cheek against the side of his neck. "You're right. I am tired and I'm probably just babbling now. I don't think I've recovered quite as much as I hoped."

"Don't worry. You'll be better in no time. No reason to rush it. Just relax, huh? Get some rest."

Shira gave a faint sigh and closed her eyes. He remembered the night they danced on the pier in Aldera, their locked bodies revolving in the same slow orbit, the still water flecked with flashes of light. They had been silent then, and they were silent now, her head pillowed against his shoulder, his arms around her.

"I love you," he said.

She didn't answer. Her sleep was peaceful and deep. He would not wake her. She could not hear him now, but something told him she already knew.


	14. Epilogue:What is True

My father told me a story. The story had one beginning but two endings. It was like a fish with a split in its tail.

Depending on his mood, my father would tell it one way or the other. After a while, he stopped telling it at all. As I grew older, I no longer asked for stories and he ceased to speak them into the darkness as I drifted off to sleep. It wasn't until after he died that all the stories came swimming back to me through the black water of my memory.

The story started something like this:

_A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there was a man made of shadows. _

_He traveled across cities and plains, to planets brimming with people and to wide, empty tracts of sand or snow but in the end, he was always alone. The shadows kept changing his shape, so that nobody would ever recognize him. They might look at him one afternoon and they'd see a long black line stretching out to the horizon. The next morning they might see a small blur like a stain on the floor._

_One day,the shadow man was sneaking through an alley, playing the kind of tricks that shadows do, when he dropped something. It slipped right through his fingers and a woman picked it up. _

_I don't know what it was that he lost. Maybe it was a deck of cards, maybe it was his toothbrush or maybe it was the little red pebble that he kept in his pocket. _

_Anyway, this woman picked it up and she kept it sealed tightly in her fist. She took good care of it, she cherished it, she kept it safe and clean, but he wanted it back and she wouldn't let it go._

_He followed her as though he was her shadow, out of the city, up hills and down them again, over rivers, to the tops of mountains and to the bottom of valleys. He didn't know why he needed the thing he dropped, but he knew it was very, very important and that he had to get it back! _

_Sometimes when she was asleep, he would try to pry her hand open and steal it back, but she was very strong and very stubborn. She held on tight. _

_You see, the woman was different, just like the shadow man. As he followed her, he realized that there was a hole inside of her, an empty space about the same shape as the thing he had dropped. Somebody had made a little cut inside her a long time ago and each day it became bigger and bigger like a hungry never spoke about it, but inside her, the wound was screaming. If you listened very carefully, you could hear it _

_echo _

_ echo_

_ echo _

_right through her body. The man could hear it and it scared him, but it also made him feel a little less alone. There was someone else like him._

_One day,she was walking across a wide stretch of grass, like the one outside our house. He was following behind her, because he was a shadow and that's what shadows do. He couldn't see her face, but he thought he could hear her crying. _

_She turned around and she had her hand open. He could see the little red pebble in her palm. _

_She told him to take it. When he hesitated, she put it in his hand and then she closed each of his fingers around it. _

_She walked away and left him standing in the middle of the field under the terrible sun. He thought that was the end of his troubles, but as he wandered back over the hills and valleys, back to the city he haunted, he realized that it wasn't the pebble he wanted. It was her and she had gone away. He didn't know why he needed her, but he knew she was very, very important and that he had to get her back._

_And so he did what he did best. He followed her footsteps. When they disappeared into the darkness, he followed the sound of the emptiness inside her. Across the galaxy, it was just a whisper, but when he was very quiet, he could hear it. He traveled for many weeks and months until he was far away from anything he had ever seen before._

_There were monsters in the places he traveled. Sometimes they were very ugly and sometimes they were very beautiful. Sometimes they didn't look like anything special and you had to squint really hard to make out what they were_.

(At this point, my father would usually tell me about one of the monsters that the shadow man met. He changed the monster every time. Sometimes they were silly, sometimes they were scary and sometimes they seemed sad and I would say that I didn't want them to die. My favorite one was a monster with one big staring eye and ten powerful arms like branches on a tree. The shadow man tricked him and made his arms tangle up and the monster literally ripped himself apart, limb by limb until he was just a column of flesh and a single staring eye.)

_Finally, after all he'd seen and done, the man made it to the very edge of everything. He looked out and there were only stars left to fence the rest of the universe in. _

_He found her there. _

_She was sitting on the last rock in the universe and she was looking out at the stars. The wound inside of her had grown very large,_

_bigger than a door, _

_bigger than your room,_

_bigger than our house or this entire town. _

_If he didn't help her, she would die. _

_He sat beside her and opened his hand. Inside was the little red pebble. _

_When she didn't reach out and take it, he took her hand and buried it inside, folding each of her fingers around it like he was closing a flower. She looked at him and she smiled._

The first time he tried to end the story here.

"You must be getting pretty tired now. I'm getting tired too," he said, rising to his feet with loud yawn. "Good night."

He walked over to switch out the lights, shooing my pet gizka out of the room with his foot.

"What happened after?" I asked. "You didn't finish."

"Nothing happened. That's the end of the story. It's your cue to go to sleep now. Force knows, I tried to make it boring."

"Stories don't just stop like that," I said. "You have to tell me what happened after. Was the girl okay? Did the guy marry her or what? You can't just leave them floating on a rock. It's not fair."

"Sometimes life isn't fair, kid," my father said. "I'll tell you some other time. Now stop pestering me about it and get to sleep."

Even I was little, I was pretty persistent. I pestered my father about it for a couple days until he finally said that he'd tell me. I should have known there'd be a catch to the deal. That was how he operated.

You see, my dad was good at telling stories but he always had to tell them his way. I'll give you an example. I went through a phase where I really liked princesses. Every story needed to have at least one princess. The more she looked like me the better I would like it. I think I saw Queen Talia's daughters in a holo-vid once and that's what started it off. Anyway, my mother would play along with it but my father never would.

He'd start making up a story and I'd interrupt him and ask, "Where's the princess?"

"Alright, here's your princess," he'd say and add in a princess, but he'd make sure to give her preposterously big ears or crossed-eyes or tell me that she was really poor and smelled like a bantha.

If I made a demand, he'd always find a way to turn it around on its head. When I begged for an ending, a definitive conclusion, a final truth, I should have known he'd give me two conflicting ones, stand up and turn out the light. It was a game we played my whole life.

This is the first ending he told me:

_The woman smiled at the shadow man and he held her in his arms very tight. The pebble he gave her was little, and even though it was very precious to her, it wasn't big enough to fill up the hole someone had dug out of her skin._

_ As he held her, he could feel the life bleeding out of her, but she just smiled at him. She was happy in spite of everything. _

_And then she just faded away and he was alone again._

_But in his travels, he'd met someone who knew many other man had two names and two faces. Both of them were masks._

_The shadow man knew that this man could help him, and he did. _

_He told him about a haunted planet. It was where the ghosts lived. If you were searching for someone who had died, you could go there and if you wanted to find them badly enough, if you knew the right way to look, they would appear to you. _

_And so the shadow man traveled again, back across the galaxy, passing through all the places that had once seemed so strange, but now they were very familiar and almost wasn't worried anymore about living or about dying._

_At last, after traveling past all the planets, nebulas and asteroid fields, he found the planet where the ghosts lived. _

_He walked out on its surface. It was very cold and there was fog swirling everywhere. When you walked on that planet, sometimes the mud would suck at your boots and you'd feel as though it was going to swallow you up. _

_He walked and walked, and then he saw her standing out in the distance, standing very still as though she was waiting for him._

_He went to her and he stayed with her._

_Each day he stayed there, the pebble he'd placed in her hand became larger and larger, heavier and heavier, and he became thinner and thinner. _

_You see, there was nothing there to eat. The ghosts didn't need food and the shadow man wasn't hungry anymore. He became so thin and so gaunt that he weighed less than a real shadow. Finally his body just disappeared and he became a ghost like her. _

_They haunted each other and the shadows danced around them until all the stars turned out forever._

_ And they were happy, in spite of everything._

When I heard this, it didn't appease my sense of fairytale justice. "Why do you always have make things unhappy?"

"I just told you that they were happy. Haven't you been listening?"

"Dead people aren't happy, Dad. They're dead. That's just weird."

"I'm alright with being weird. Just remember it's in your genes, too, you smart-mouthed tach," he said. "Anyway, there's a second ending to the story."

The next night, he told me the second ending:

_The woman smiled at the shadow man and he held her in his arms very tight. The pebble was little, even though it was very precious to her. It didn't seem big enough to fill up the hole someone had dug out of her skin. _

_But there was something large and powerful at the end of all things, a force that shone out of the stars that kept the universe together. _

_The red pebble grew and grew until it was _

_larger than your room, _

_larger than our house, _

_larger than this entire city, _

_the exact same size and shape as the wound inside of the woman. It filled up the hole inside of her body and stopped the life from bleeding out. _

_The shadow man smiled at her because he was no longer a shadow. He had become real and when she reached out her hand to touch him, he didn't waver anymore. _

_She held onto him and she was very strong and very stubborn. She wouldn't let go. _

_They loved each other until all the stars turned out and even in a galaxy where forever doesn't exist, they kept promising each other "forever and forever", forever and ever. _

_Oh yeah, and before you start objecting, they got married too. They had a kid who was almost as cute and obnoxious as you, but not quite, because I need to keep this story realistic. They lived for a very long time and had many adventures, but they never changed too much and nothing really horrible ever happened so there wasn't much suspense. _

_In the end, they became very old and they began forgetting things. _

_The man would ask his wife, "Where did my datapad go?" and she wouldn't know._

_He'd sit down and hear a crunch beneath him. That's how he'd find out where things were._

_After a while, they forgot more important things, like what happened last Welona or that a friend of theirs wasn't around anymore._

_ Finally, after having worn out their lives and forgotten everything but the best stuff, the stuff that didn't hurt to remember, one of them died. _

_I'm not sure who went first. I'm sure it was the shadow man, because he didn't eat enough vegetables and he didn't take very good care of himself. _

_After he died, the woman was very sad for a long time, but she kept living the best she could because she promised him she would. _

_She held on to that little pebble tight until it was her turn to go._

_She was frightened, but she knew it would be alright because he'd gone ahead. He used to follow her and now it was her turn to follow him. _

_So she did. _

_And that was the end, because there were no words left to be said._

"I don't get it. How can you have two endings? Which one is true?"

My dad looked at me. I'll never forget his face at that moment. When he died last year, it was the first image of him that flashed into my mind.

He smiled into the fuzzy darkness of my room, but it wasn't at me.

There was something behind that smile that I've been searching for ever since. It's like groping around in the house late night with all the lights off. I brushed up against something with my elbow, a piece of his furniture, the outline of one of the secrets he kept so well. I felt it was there, but I don't know if I'll ever figure out what it was.

"Which one is true, Dad?"

My father said, "Which one do you want to be true?"

"The happy one."

"Then that's the true one."

He stood up from his chair and walked to the door with his familiar slow, shambling gait.

"Good night, kid," he said.

He turned out the lights.

Outside my window, I could see faint specks of stars scattered across the sky.


End file.
